25 BMC schools to get e-libraries soon

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) education department is set to launch e-libraries for the students of 25 schools in three to four months. The civic body will spend a whopping Rs 1.40 lakh for each library, where hundreds of e-books will be made available for free.

A senior official, who is in charge of the e-library project, said, “In this project, schools will be given the licence access of the ‘host computer’, which will be run by department officials. We will feed e-books in the host computer so that the client computers, which are the school computers, get to access them.”

“We had been planning the project for a long time. As of now, the tender process is underway in the education department’s accounts section,” she added.

These libraries will include all genres of books for students inclu-ding storybooks, poetry books and autobiographies. As of now, the students have already been provided e-textbooks, which are the digital versions of their textbooks. The libraries’ books will be in English, Hindi, Marathi and Urdu.

Also, computer experts will train teachers in the use of computers and how to make them read-ready for the students.

On the basis of the outcome and response of the students and other stakeholders, the department may execute the e-library project in all the remaining BMC-run schools in the city. The department, for the past few years, has been trying to introduce novel approaches to enhance the academic life of students as its aim is to provide a qualitative education to students.