Visitors at the Cotton library on Monday. Picture by S.H. Patgiri

Aug. 2: The days of pouring over catalogues and booklists are finally over for the students of Cotton College. The premier college of the Northeast is set to complete computerisation of its century-old Surya Kumar Bhuyan (SKB) Library with UGC funds in a month.

Students, hard-pressed for time, can browse through titles and information on books at the click of a mouse from in a few weeks from now.

The UGC decided to fund the computerisation on the basis of a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) directive to keep alive a piece of history. In 1913, the Calcutta University Commission (Sadler Commission) had stated that “the library of Cotton College, though not large, was better organised and better used by the students....”.

The library has 1,09,500 books apart from journals and periodicals. It serves the needs of 4,002 students, 240 faculty members and 265 non-teaching staff.

Librarian Zabeen Ahmed, who recently completed an intensive training on computerisation of modern libraries organised by the University Grants Commission at Ahmedabad, said the college authorities have completed all formalities for the process. “Work will begin any day now. The PCs have arrived,” she said.

Ahmed said a NAAC team, which recently visited the SKB Library, placed it in the “A” category and instructed the staff to stop doing any manual work. “With an A-grade, we are expecting more funds from the UGC to develop the library,” she said.

The SKB Library has already applied to the Union ministry of culture for funds to preserve rare and old documents through modern methods.

The library will be computerised in three phases. While the hardware and LAN equipment have been ordered from HCL Ltd, for the software, an order has been placed with the INFLIBNET for SOUL network version. The database of the library will be installed in the first phase, while a computerised circulation service will be introduced in the next.

The library documents will be barcoded in the third phase and the members will be issued computerised identity cards.

The Cotton College library was set up in the hall of single-storeyed building in 1901. In 1913, a committee was formed to take over the management of the library.

Cotton College is also planning to computerise its scholarship, fees, salary disbursement and examination branches. The computerisation project is part of a plan to revamp the college to make it a centre of excellence.

The non-gazetted employees are being trained in computer application. The computerisation of the finance and accounts departments will be completed in nine months.

Over a 100 computers with round-the-clock Internet access will be placed in the different departments, especially the administrative block, within six months under a muti-crore project of the state government.

The NAAC team, which visited the college recently, stated that “the college has the potential to become an autonomous institution.”