A public library is a library which is openly available to all the people and is accessible to everyone without discrimination of age or class. It is indeed the best way to increase one’s own knowledge and the refinement of personality.
Unfortunately, in Pakistan we have not succeeded in developing the library culture and hence, maintaining the trend of going to Public Libraries when idle and making it our most privileged pastime. Deplorably, libraries have never been able to become the part of our society, as they were most needed.
Most people, particularly the students confer with the library of their universities only for the sake of accomplishment of their course assignments and not more than that. They can’t even think of gaining something else, something bigger and marvelous from merely a public library because they are brought up like that. They find amusement and I would say convenience in going to cafes and restaurants than going to a public library. Convenience in a way that the cafes etc are found almost everywhere and in cafes they provide such atmosphere that people would like to adhere with.
We don’t find the fully equipped libraries around us that cope with the moods and tastes of the people of present century. The new generation certainly, does not prefer and appreciate or like to go with the conventional and dull ways in anything and anywhere. As, newness and modernism grab the attention of everyone.
We see in the developed countries that they give special importance in maintaining the public libraries. The world’s largest library is situated in London, England known as the British Library consisting 170 million items and is visited by 1.75 million visitors annually. Whereas, the world’s most visited library is the New York Public Library that contains 53.1 million items and is visited by 18 million people annually. And in Pakistan we have, Quaid e Azam Library Lahore, which is considered one of the largest libraries in Pakistan, and has 100,000 volumes only which does not lie anywhere in the race of modern libraries. The former described libraries are excellent example of the modern world public libraries. They are completely equipped with the modern technological facilities lie computers, printers, photocopiers, DVDs, magazines etc. Their budget lies in millions of dollar.
Being a third world developing country, we cannot afford such libraries on public level. But we can find other ways similar to public libraries. We can see the example of Turkey, where they have provided free old books on book stalls. Likewise, our government can provide us with such book stalls on different famous streets or on roadside. And, they can apply the rule where nobody can own a book but must pass it to another person when finished reading it or simply return the book from where he has brought. In this way they can provide us a lot of books in a cheaper way and also, it is adaptable and will promote the sense of harmony in people.
In Israel, they passed a law known as, “Law for the protection of Literature and of Authors in Israel.” This law enlists its objectives as to ensure the promotion of literature in Israel and to preserve the cultural diversity in the publications and in the distribution of books in the country to provide readers the facilities to select among the wide range of books according to various tastes and wishes of the people. This law will definitely give boost to the library culture as more the books will be published on diverse subjects, the more people will like to actually go to libraries for reading.
We should also have such laws and efforts not only from our government but also we should indulge ourselves in these types of chores for the welfare and mental and moral development of our nation.
Solitary Gleaner 
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