Tamil Nadu to Send Over 1 Lakh Books to Jaffna Public Library by February

In the year 1981 politically motivated mobs from the south burnt the iconic Jaffna Public Library in Srilanka, which had over 90,000 rare books and palm-leaf manuscripts. Subsequently, the library was rebuilt and opened in 2003. Now it has close to 100,000 books.

To replenish the resources of Jaffna Public Library, which had lost its rare collections of books and manuscripts to the fire, the Tamil Nadu directorate of public libraries has so far collected nearly 40,000 Tamil books from general public and educational institutions.

 The collection of books varies from ancient Tolkappiam to biographies of famous film personalities,” said S.Kannappan,  previous director (incharge) of public libraries who helmed the project till last week.

The officials were confident they could collect all the one lakh books within a month’s time and send it to Jaffna Library by February 2018