Metro reported on June 14 the problems faced by a correspondent while trying to buy books from National Library

National Library employees, supposed to catalogue 20-25 books and periodicals a day, can manage only two.

As a consequence, members cannot borrow more than 10 lakh new books and periodicals that have been lying in neglect for the past couple of years.

The snail’s pace of work has prompted the library’s board of management, which functions under the Union culture ministry, to blame poor work culture as the biggest challenge before the 60-year-old institute of national importance.

An official said the board members were shocked to learn that the library employees take eight hours to catalogue and place on the shelves only two books against the standard practice of 20 to 25 in other libraries.

“The work culture is a matter of concern. Most employees are unwilling to work and those in the processing department (in charge of cataloguing books) are the worst. They catalogue two books daily and go home,” board chairman Omprakash Kejariwal told Metro.

According to norms, when a book or periodical comes to the library, it goes to the processing department first for classification and preparation of catalogue cards.

Of the 442 regular employees of the library, around 60 are in the processing department.

Kejariwal, accompanied by two other board members, visited the library on Wednesday and held meetings with the librarian and the director-in-charge.

While evaluating the performance, the board members stumbled upon other startling facts like non-utilisation of Rs 7 crore that the Union ministry had sanctioned as part of the library’s budget in the current fiscal.

“The fund was meant for buying books and periodicals, but not a single penny has been spent. The entire corpus has to be refunded if it remains unutilised and from next year, the amount can be slashed,” said a board member.

Director-in-charge R. Ramachandran, however, claimed that Rs 60 lakh has been spent to buy books and periodicals.

P.B Mangla, who was in the visiting team, said: “Accessing books is painfully slow and employees are too lethargic. The computerisation process has got delayed because of the employees’ lackadaisical attitude. But why should the employees take hours to hand over books to readers? It’s unfortunate that readers have to face such harassment.”

Mangla said there was no one to monitor the functioning of the library on a daily basis. The institution has been running without a director since the retirement of Suddhendu Mondal in August 2007.

“We are planning to organise seminars to instil a sense of responsibility in the employees so they start doing their job. We will discuss the issue with the ministry in Delhi,” a board member said.

Ramachandran admitted that work culture was a problem. “I have got several complaints from readers and action has been taken against employees who were found guilty.”

A senior official blamed the ministry for the state of affairs. “Why are they suddenly raising the issue of work culture? It has been prevalent for many years. The ministry had let off several employees who had harassed readers because of their CPM connection.”