Eloor, the 27-year-old city library, continues to ward-off competition from e-portals with a satisfied reader base of 17,000 members

Sixty three-year-old Meera Khanna comes to Bengaluru from her farm in Nandi Valley, Sultanpet Village in Andhra Pradesh once every two weeks — “to pick up a few books from Eloor Libraries” on the ground floor of Blue Cross Chambers on Infantry Road. In this world swamped by ebooks, online libraries and new-age libraries like JustBooks, “Eloor” as it’s known by everyone in Bangalore boasts of 17,000 members. This was the place where once you would find Girish Karnad or Ramachandran Guha standing with titled heads, reading quietly by the book shelves — Eloor has no reading room. There’s just a “private room” where “old books” are stored.
Khanna was introduced to Eloor by her son, who now lives in the US. “He became a member of the library when he was a teenager.” And why she crosses borders to borrow books? “There’s no better feeling than picking an old book with yellowed-pages.” And also Eloor has any book that she wants and “a very good layout”.

Eloor was first established in 1979 by Luiz John in Ernakulam, Kerala. According to their website it was because “the government libraries had not been able to satisfy the hunger for books; plenty of new titles were getting published, but there were only very few readers who could buy the books they wanted. Readers truly needed a library like Eloor”. The Bangalore branch was opened 1988. Its shelves stack rows of English books across various genres such as fiction, non-fiction, autobiographies, biographies, thrillers, business and children books. In Bengaluru alone they have a collection of about 1.5 lakh books. They also have outlets in Chennai and New Delhi, and their most recent store was opened in Kolkata in 1994. The one-time refundable deposit of Rs 800 (and you can borrow books/magazines worth Rs.1200.The library charges its members a tenth of the price of the book as reading charges.) Of course they have a few “regular and faithful members” who borrow 30/40 books at a time. “We lend it to them based on trust,” says the N Gopal Rao, the library manager. Ideally, the book has to be returned in a span of two weeks, “but we don’t really insist because some people might take much longer to complete a book. They can simply call and extend the return-date,” says the genial Rao.

Priya Mohanraj (52) is intently flipping through the pages of Sufi by Idris Shah in the religious section at the Library. The books she has borrowed – Shamans Mystics and Doctors by Sudhir Kakar and Sufi – were suggested Rao who has worked at Eloor for the past 15 years. “The people here know the taste of every reader (member) and suggest books accordingly. This really spoils you. But it saves you a lot of time too. I like reading about religion, philosophy and psychology and they just seem to pick the right books for me,” says Mohanraj, a former economics professor and emotional counsellor for adolescents.

Rao himself was a voracious reader who enjoyed library hopping, when he signed on to be a librarian at Eloor in 2000. At the time, they had about 100-120 members coming in on a daily basis and the numbers would double during weekends. Today, however, the numbers have dwindled at about 40-60 people on weekdays and increases by 10-15 by weekend. Eloor had its hey days in the 90s when they saw a surge in membership. In 2000 they had 12,000 members. Between then and now they have only 5000 new members. Still, 27 years since its inception in Bengaluru, the library remains a hub for serious readers and continues to cater to different generations of its 17,000-odd members. “For someone who likes reading, there’s no better feeling than holding the book, feeling its weight and enjoying that ‘old book smell.’ Something e-commerce giants like Amazon or Flipkart cannot match,” says Rao (36).

Books have inspired serious competition here, he recounts. When the fifth book in the Harry Potter series – The Order of the Phoenix – released in 2003, there was about 100m long queue outside Eloor even before they had opened the store at 10am. The store had bought 20 copies from distributors and those on the waiting list were called when the book became available. But of course there is no such rush in the recent times, what with pre-ordering available on many online stores. “Members let us know much in advance what book they are looking to read and we place orders accordingly with the five distributors we have,” says Rao. Eloor adds books to their shelf every month when the distributors send the latest releases and Rao hand picks books based on their readers’ liking.

Krishna Murthy, at 83, is the oldest member here. The octogenarian loves reading thrillers, “and whenever he visits I ensure I give me the latest arrivals in that genre. Usually members tend to stick to the authors they like and don’t explore others so I recommend something is worth a read and is of their liking,” says Rao. The youngest include a bunch of six-year-olds who come in to borrow Marvel comics and superhero gen-next books. In fact, there are a few parents, mostly in their 30s, who bring their kids, as young as three, to read out children’s books to them. “They just want the kids to feel the library, you know,” says Rao with a smile.

It has been tough, he admits, surviving the onslaught of online stores. “The youngsters like to read on their Kindles, phones and rarely have the time to come visit a library.” But he is optimistic. “The advent of newer libraries such as Just Books and Easy books have not really dented our business, mainly because of the collection we have,” he adds. However, Eloor too will have to keep up with the times. “We will start an online portal soon where readers can select the books they want and we can home deliver them,” Rao says.

source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Nandini Kumar, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / July 30th, 2015