MUMBAI, August 1: The Mumbai Marathi Grantha Sangrahalaya, the largest repository of Marathi books in the city and a veritable treasurehouse of information about the metropolis, is entering its hundredth year today.For the serious Marathi bibliophile, the Sangrahalaya has always been a hallowed place. Established in 1898 by eleven selfless enthusiasts in Thakurdwar with a view to making Marathi books available to Mumbaikars, the library that began with a nucleus of 400 books has today blossomed into an institution with a collection of nearly 4.75 lakh books and 44 branches across the city.``The library, with a closely-knit network covering areas from Colaba to Dahisar and Bori Bunder to Mulund, has 15,000 subscribers,'' said its general secretary, R D Kulkarni. The subscription fee has been kept at a nominal Rs 18, he informed, with the knowledge that the library movement can be made powerful only when it assimilates the middle-class and lower-middle class sections of society.Apart from providing books to book-lovers, the library also provides a fillip to research in language and history through its research centres, `The Marathi Sansodhan Mandal' and `The Itihas Sansodhan Mandal.' To enrich various literary forms, the library started its publication department many years ago. `The Marathi Sansodhan Mandal' has published 38 books on linguistic research, and `The Itihas Sansodhan Mandal' has to its credit over 20 books on historical research.The Sane Guruji Bal Vikas Mandir section of the Granthalaya is meant exclusively for children, and the library's `Date Suchi Mandal' has released a voluminous book carrying a comprehensive record of all Marathi periodicals published during the period of 1800-1950. A tome having a bibliographic record of journals between 1951-1980 is presently being compiled.The BMC too has assigned the responsibility of running and maintaining twenty nine municipal libraries to the Granthalaya.The library's reference section has over 1,500 rare books and manuscripts, including first editions of some antiquarian books. The oldest book in the collection, titled Astronomy, dates back to 1707. The American Congress has asked for 600 rare books from the library for the purpose of microfilming, as the US wishes to make these books available to students of some of its universities.Earlier, collection of books was given prime importance, but now their preservation and conservation has become a high-priority area. However, the Sangrahalaya has still not been able to introduce new techniques for the purpose. ``Microfilming is costly, and at the moment we cannot cough up the required sum of Rs 50 lakhs for a microfilming project. The funds we generate are insufficient,'' Kulkarni rued. The state government okayed a grant of Rs 1,20,000 for the Granthalaya in June 1996, but despite clearance obtained from the concerned ministries, the amount has not yet reached the library.Plans are afoot to computerise the library's maintenance system and have an air-conditioned hall for rare books, though handsome donations from patrons aren't forthcoming. ``This will prevent their decay and acidification, which is the greatest enemy of books,'' Kulkarni said. And with the Granthalaya determined to gift an ``unsquandered'' legacy to future generations, projects to implement preservation techniques like lamination, deacidification and pasting of tissue paper on old manuscripts are also on the cards.
