Written by Dharamjeet Kumar
“Library as a refuge”, the phrase is so much relatable yet I never thought of putting it like this. This vision about library has been one of the major takeaways from LEC contact 2. The library has been an escape for me in times of loneliness or unpleasant surrounding. Several times that loneliness was about a refused idea that I carried which needed to be discussed and engaged with others or the desire to seek others thoughts over it. A library should be a place which strengthens the ideas of democracy, equality, and liberty.
The reason to go for the LEC 2018 was the realization that there is a greater need to give focus on developing children libraries and making reading accessible to children as part of our core work. Our organization, Ayang, works with a tribe called ‘Mising’ tribe on the river islands of Majuli, Assam. Majuli is an island district of Assam surrounded by the mighty river Brahmaputra and Subhansiri. The journey from Majuli to Goa is long but it has the beauty of its own. You have the option of boats, ferry to plane to make this journey.
The journey about exploring children literature and shaping the idea of children library that started in April this year continued. With this excitement of exploration and meeting the LEC friends, I reached Goa for the second contact. The second contact started with a few rounds of reflection on the part of the course covered so far and continued with different sessions. Each of those sessions like on poetry or the importance of balance between non-fiction and fiction as part of the collection opened to me like a magic box of knowledge. At least for me who lacked any significant exposure before, on children books or libraries, all these sessions happened to be with much meaning to me. What beautifully adds to the efficacy of this session is the sharing of views and experiences by the participants who come from different background and perspectives in line to the subject being discussed.
So far, LEC has been incredibly helpful to me and for our organization. Running an organization is highly involving and consuming task. Often times being busy with issues on the field I miss-out to look over the bigger picture and to trace the relation of our work with the larger ecosystem. The rigorously designed contact periods enables one to dig a little deeper to understand the larger context. The second contact was about further building the vision for a library. In this direction, sessions explored some crucial questions on our collection like how we understand morality and its relevance in children literature and how we are addressing gender issues through our collection. The uniqueness of these sessions designed on any issue is that it unearths critical question without the intention of giving an answer rather encouraging the participant to engage with the question and explore the answer for themselves. The kind of environment of discussion and exploration on children library that this contact period makes is an experience of its kind and tough to explain.