Libraries play a vital role in promoting knowledge, cultivating creative ideas, and preserving a nation’s history. Libraries are synonymous with education and offer a number of learning opportunities that fuel up educational, cultural, and social development. They help to assure an authentic record of knowledge created and accumulated by the past generation.
Furthermore, libraries also provide aids to the students from underprivileged families who cannot afford textbooks. So, they approach their course books from the nearby library. In other words, a library is not a luxury, but one of the basic necessities of educational life. A society lacking libraries can never progress well.
But, it is heartbreaking to know that Balochistan, the largest province of Pakistan by area and the richest in resources, is deprived of their very due right. Within the last five years, library usage in Balochistan is rapidly going up, but the recurrent state funding is badly going down.
Quetta, the capital city of the resource-rich province, has merely two public libraries namely Sandeman and Quaid-e-Azam public library; where, unfortunately, students face a great number of problems while the scarcity of seats is the most observable one. Students in Quetta city face too many obstacles that compel them to rush towards libraries early in the mornings since going late can consequently result in finding no seat for the rest of the day.
Turbat, being the second largest city of Balochistan, has only one public library where students neither find any relevant books nor enough space for learning efficiently. When libraries in big cities are in such severe conditions, how could one expect betterment for libraries located in far-flung areas of the province?
There is a thirst for knowledge, but dishearteningly, paucity of facilities in Balochistan. People of Balochistan need more libraries on an emergency basis.
I, as a student and resident of Turbat city, sincerely draw the attention of the government of Balochistan towards the falling standard of libraries of the province and humbly request the concerned authorities to take concrete measures for establishing at least one public library in each district and enact the dysfunctional libraries too.
