The Library is Present
Keeping a community library alive during times of COVID 19 lockdown
As the country came to a near halt during the COVID 19 lockdown in late March 2020, like many library educators across the nation, I wondered what the lockdown meant for libraries, their functioning and purpose. As hunger, displacement and the pandemic gripped the nation, books and reading were defined as non-essential services. I joined my team at Hasiru Dala in relief work for waste-pickers and other informal workers in Bangalore and witnessed some of most disturbing sights of my life. While waste management was listed as an essential service by the government, informal waste pickers who remain on the forefront of the informal solid waste management framework of any city were not recognised as essential service provide...