Category Archives: Library

Librarians as teachers

9 Comments | Posted on October 24, 2012 by Raza Jaffri

By Zubeida Mustafa

AT the Children’s Literature Festival in Quetta last month, the provincial education secretary had promised to make provisions for a library in every government school in Balochistan.

If this actually materialises, the province will certainly have something to boast about. A school without a library is like a body without a soul. Can you expect students to love reading if they are not immersed in a world of books that a library creates? Continue reading →

9 Comments | Posted in Books, Children and Youth, Education, Library |

A century of bookselling

13 Comments | Posted on April 11, 2012 by Raza Jaffri
Focal point for scholars: (l to r) Dr Noman Naqvi, Prof Patrick Laude, Habib Abbasi, Noman Baig-- Pix courtesy Patrick Laude

By Zubeida Mustafa

NOT many readers would have visited Juna Market, the commercial hub of Karachi where hardware and spices compete with halwa puri to find buyers.

In the ocean of commodities catering to hedonistic pleasures stands a lone modest-looking bookshop that seeks to nourish the mind. It has been doing that for 102 years, an anomaly among its worldly surroundings. Continue reading →

13 Comments | Posted in Books, Culture and the Arts, Education, Library, Notable Personalities |

Progress of library science

1 Comment | Posted on August 9, 2006 by Raza Jaffri

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

TOMORROW is the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Library and Information Science Department of the University of Karachi. It was on August 10, 1956, that the department launched its post-graduate diploma programme – the first degree level course for librarians in Pakistan.

A programme in librarianship had been started in Lahore by Asa Don Dickenson, a student of the famous Melvil Dewey in 1915, but it was a certificate course. In 1957, the diploma programme was converted into a degree and a Master’s course. Nearly 3,143 students have graduated from the department in the last 50 years. Its faculty has grown from seven members – many of them part time – under the founding chairman Abdul Moid to nine full time staff members today.
Continue reading →

1 Comment | Posted in Library |

Creating a library culture

Comments Off | Posted on May 24, 2006 by Raza Jaffri

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

THE news from the library front in Karachi will not cheer the bibliophiles. The plan for a library, that had been promised way back in 1991 by mayor Farooq Sattar who had earmarked for it a three-acre plot of land in Gulshan-i-Iqbal near the Nipa Chowrangi, has now been dropped.

A hospital is to be built there instead. Fifteen years ago, a lot of fanfare had attended the launching of this scheme that was to be designated a city library. Architects were invited to submit designs for this institution and three entries were selected for prizes worth Rs 100,000. The building plan was approved.
Continue reading →

Comments Off | Posted in Education, Library |

ARTICLES: Ancient treasure of knowledge

Comments Off | Posted on June 22, 2003 by Raza Jaffri

By Zubeida Mustafa

London has a new landmark. The British Library. Opened to the public five years ago, it has emerged as a major crowd-puller in the British metropolis. That is not at all surprising for it combines on its premises the beauty of its architecture, the aesthetic delicacy of its decor and the wealth of its collected treasures to attract even the most ‘unliterary’ of people. You don’t have to be a bibliophile or a scholar looking for reference material to visit the library, though 431,000 of its visitors last year were readers who had come to consult its books. But nearly as many came just to have a look around and marvel at what they saw.
Continue reading →

Comments Off | Posted in Books, Library |

Why are our students not avid readers?

Comments Off | Posted on April 12, 1983 by Zubeida Mustafa
Illustration: Sumbul Nazir

By Zubeida Mustafa

SOME students were once asked why they read books — that is books other than their course books. Their answers were quite varied: to kill time; to increase their knowledge; because they were asked to do so by their teacher; to fulfil their social needs; to develop their personalities. Very few said that they read for pleasure. When young people are not reading books voluntarily or because they derive a sense of satisfaction from it, it is not strange that they are not forming life-long reading habits.

Obviously when a person feels under a compulsion or pressure to read, he will abandon is books as soon as he no longer feels the need for them. While a number of young people are reading books as a duty, there are a number of others who are not reading at all, their prescribed texts excepted.

A National Book Council survey conducted in 1981 found that 20 per cent of the students questioned said that they did not like to read. Even those who read, devoted most of the Continue reading →

Comments Off | Posted in Archive Edition, Books, Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Education, Library |

Publishing industry’s travail: Narrow market, poor technology inhibit expansion

Comments Off | Posted on October 24, 1982 by Zubeida Mustafa
books-24-10-1982

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN 1978, the year for which full statistics are available, 642,000 titles were published in the world. Out of these Pakistan’s share was a meagre 1,317 titles, whereas Japan and West Germany, with smaller population produced over 43,000 and 50,000 titles respectively.

This projects a rather gloomy picture of the state of our book world. Things are said to Continue reading →

Comments Off | Posted in Archive Edition, Books, Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Economy, Education, Library |