The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Stalin opens restored library

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Thursday, Nov 23, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Stalin opens restored library

Staff Reporter

Renovation of 110-year-old building was six years in the making

UNIQUE AMBIENCE: Visitors browse through the parts of the Connemara Library's collections housed in the recently restored old building in the city on Wednesday. — Photo: K. Pichumani

CHENNAI: Local Administration Minister, M.K. Stalin, inaugurated the renovated Connemara Library here on Wednesday evening.

The 110-year old building of the Library was restored by the Archaeological Survey of India, spearheaded by the Superintending Archaeologist, Chennai Circle, Sathyabama Badrinath, and Senior Conservation Assistant, Bhagwan Sarathy.

The renovation, six years in the making, was funded by the Departments of Culture, Government of India, and School Education, Tamil Nadu.

`Object of pride'

Rare books, back issues of periodicals and government documents are now housed in the building that Mr. Stalin described as `an object of pride for the state of Tamil Nadu'.

He urged the authorities to focus not on embellishing the library, but on ensuring that it was maintained properly. The library was a repository of rare books, such as copies of a 1608 edition of the Bible, John Ovington's travelogue published in 1689 and documentation of Siddha medicine by Whitelaw Ainslie in 1813, the minister said. The Minister gave away compact discs (CDs) to mark the initiation of the project to digitise the library's collection of over 50,000 English and more than 1,00,000 Tamil books. The digitising is being carried out by the library in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon University and the Tirupati Tirumala Devasthana Sree Venkateswara Digital Library.

Parithi Illamvazhuthi, Minister for Information and Publicity, gave away prizes to school children who topped the oratorical and essay competitions held to mark National Library Week. He recalled that Anna used to spend a lot of time in the Connemara Library and that it was the source of his erudition as well as oratorical skills. Thangam Thennarasu, Minister for School Education, and Chennai Corporation Mayor, M. Subramaniam, also participated in the event.

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