Street libraries fading away in Punjab
The trend of reading printed books has decreased significantly due to people's dependence on social media. The practice of reading books after borrowing them from libraries established in the streets has almost vanished.
New shopping malls are being built in the provincial capital, food streets are being opened and there is abundance of fast food outlets. Amid such developments, the interest among the students to read books has mostly become limited till their examinations.
In the initial years of the country's independence, private libraries were set up in the streets and buildings of the provincial metropolis became. Initially, any person could get his favorite book from the libraries for one anna per day, or a few paisa.
Until a few years ago, the readers used to rent books of their choice from the libraries and return them the next day. However, with the passage of time, amid social and cultural changes in major cities due to technological development, hundreds of private libraries in Lahore have not been able to survive.
There are very few libraries in the city where books are issued on daily charges.
One of them is located in the Township area. Nadim Lodhi, the owner of the library, says that he had established it while he was doing another job to rent out the books collected by him for reading.
“I remember when my library had a crowd of readers and sometimes people had to wait for several days to get their desired books.” According to Lodhi, every neighborhood of Lahore used to have at least three or four libraries that provided young readers storybooks and magazines.
The books of Imran series, Naseem Hijazi's novels, romance stories, spy stories, current affairs books, scientific journals and informative books were available for youth while digest magazines were popular among women.
Since the arrival of social media, children, women as well as youth remain busy on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and other social media platforms. Many also watch videos on YouTube.
Another library owner, Mohammad Aleem Bilal said that the street libraries were part of Lahore's culture and a source of income of many people.
"Nowadays, food streets are being set up in Lahore and shopping malls are being built but unfortunately a book street is not planned to promote education."
According to a citizen, Mohammad Amjad, a 'Kabab culture' has replaced the book culture in the city Mohammad Naveed has been selling old books on the footpath in Anarkali Bazaar for a long time.
He said that about a decade ago, not only the owners of private libraries from Lahore but other cities also used to buy books from him regularly.
However, in recent years, more people started to selling instead of buying them, he added. MA in Mass Communication student Ali Nawaz Malik said that while speaking to The Express Tribune that the number of textbooks had increased so much that "we do not have time to read other books".
According to experts, the book reading trend is decreasing due to modern equipment. They say the tradition can be revived by providing modern facilities to libraries.