My library, my world

Nivedita Bedadur and S.L. Faizal

Have you heard of this little library, tucked away in God’s own land, in Kendriya Vidyalaya Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, with its magical library educator, who is transforming the way we think of the school library and its role in the community? Introducing S.L. Faisal, a veritable magician!

Faisal Sir, what is your vision of a school library?
I have envisioned the school library as an integral component of the education system that supports students to achieve the skills of learning, literacy and life. It must empower educators to deliver the course content and to teach efficiently. The library creates a free, safe and open environment where ideas and resources are shared without barriers.

How is your vision similar to or different from Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan’s (KVS) vision regarding the library and its role in education?
KVS believes in creating knowledge/values and nurturing the talent, enthusiasm and creativity of its students to seek excellence through high quality educational endeavours. Sharing knowledge and values is the core of all my library initiatives. KVS cherishes its libraries greatly. It is the only institution in the education sector that has brought out well-conceived school library guidelines, and a procedure manual. The KV library system contributes enormously in placing the institution at the top of the academic achievement indicators in the country.

How do you envision the library space?
In my view, a school library must be a free space open to everyone in the school that supports learning, facilitates sharing of ideas and always remains a comfort zone to relax. The resources, whether physical, electronic, or online must be organized in a manner that allows users to access them, as and when they wish, while they are in the school or at home. E.g., Fiction has been the most sought-after genre in our school and to keep users hooked, we have decided to keep it near the reading section, where everyone assembles while keeping all other books arranged in the stack room. Also, there are no ‘Keep Silence’ boards in the library.

You have also visualized the library space as more than just four walls. You have a kaleidoscope of ICT based innovations in your hat! We have heard that you began to conceive of the library as a virtual space in early 2007. Can you describe your journey in the virtual space as a conscious library educator?
Yes, it has been an exciting journey, I remember I started to extend the library virtual space with KV Pattom Library blog, launched in 2007.

I have heard that it has been considered as the first school library blog in India. Can you tell us more about it?
A large number of academic and curriculum based online resources are collected, organized and hosted on the blog as posts, links, pages and categories. The blog receives more than 3000 hits every day and has received more than 7.89 million hits so far. More than 5900 people subscribed to the blog through email. Library Blog url: http://Iibrarykvpattom.wordpress.com.

I hear that this was followed in 2010 by the Library Junction – an online social network?
Yes, Library Junction was developed into a fully moderated, academic, social network supported by a team of teachers selected from different subject backgrounds. It is a site where the students can ask curriculum related questions to expert faculty members and clear their doubts. Here the community shares links, does wiki projects, downloads study materials and e-books and creates sub groups on books, authors and themes. The network had more than 1000 students as members. Website: http://Iibraryiunction.net. This project secured KVS National Innovation and Experimentation Award in 2010 and the National Award for Innovative Practices and Experiments in Education by NCERT in 2010-11.

We recognize that with the Library Junction you re-imagined the role of the library educator and the space of the library by making it the hub of all learning. It became a collaborative and democratic space. At this juncture you must have pondered on the access of this space to the community beyond school hours and to children who are marginalized by the digital divide!
True, it was the question of access that led me to design the mobile interface. The mobile interface of KV Pattom Library was launched in June 2021. The primary objective of this customization was to provide all students and staff of the school, access to library resources and services on their smartphones or any mobile device in a remote learning online environment. Anyone can access all online resources from the library 24X7 by simply adding the page on their Mobile home screen. Besides providing access to curriculum-based resources and engaging learning activities, this library at one’s fingertips showcases regularly updated informative and entertaining content that supports joyful learning. url: https://linktr.ee/librarykvpattom.

Most schools found it difficult to provide library access to learning during the pandemic, but you seem to have been thinking before time. How did you do it?
We responded to the pandemic immediately by setting up the virtual library in 2020 by customizing Wakelet, a content curation tool to support remote learning. URL: https://wakelet.com/@Librarykvpattom. The virtual collections are being shared with students regularly. This successful model has been replicated by school libraries around the country.

There are a number of tools/designs/platforms that you created since 2008 that became the mainstay of your community outreach during the pandemic. We would love to hear about some of them.
Since 2008, homework and assignments were already online in K.V. Pattom, and it was a first-of its-kind initiative in India. The basic objectives are to provide easy and 24X7 access to school homework and assignments online. This successful experiment was replicated by a large number of schools all over the country. The project helped the school win the ‘Best integration of Technology in Education Award’ for Schools instituted jointly by Intel and KVS in 2009.Project website: http://homeworksonline.wordpress.com.

E-Magazine (first school e-magazine)
Launched in 2008, this was the first e-magazine published by any school in India which promotes students’ creative talents by offering them a platform for publishing online. It publishes literary creations of students and teachers and events held in the school. The e-magazine acts as the school diary of events. http://kvpattomemagazine.wordpress.com.

Audio library
The audio library was launched in 2020 to support learning on the go. Carefully selected sound tracks are organized as different playlists. These include original sound tracks of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Tagore and selected speeches by great personalities. There are children’s audio stories by famous authors and stories by the student storytellers of Kendriya Vidayalaya Pattom. https://soundcloud.com/library-kvpattom.

You have also reached out to alumni, who have responded to your efforts by expanding the community of readers. What was the objective of this experiment?
In 2014 we started the E-Reading Hub (First KV E-Reading Hub). The prime objective of this experiment was to promote e-reading and to attract tech-savvy youngsters to the library. The E-Reading Hub is equipped with 10 Kindle readers and loaded with more than 3000 e-books. Five e-readers were sponsored by the 1978 batch of students.

The pandemic created conditions where mental health and safety of children were at stake. How did you respond to this?
Our KV Pattom Karaoke is an experiment with video sharing platform Flipgrid. The basic objective was to make children happy while they are confined at home during the COVID-19 Pandemic period and give them an opportunity to showcase their singing talents. The tag line was ‘Sing your Heart Out! Flipgrid Link: https://flipgrid.com/65ba429d.

I have created an Interactive e-book ‘Silver Lining’ for Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Ernakulum; which is a compilation of creative reflections on COVID-19 pandemic by the students of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Ernakulam Region. It consists of 68 poems and flash fiction, 13 memes and 5 tweets and 25 paintings in Hindi and English by the students. They were accompanied by an audio/video where the students read out or presented the creation. The experiment was done on ‘Book creator’ platform and widely appreciated by the readers. Link to the e-book: https://read.bookcreator.com/PsWwOfw688SKa0rtzQniBuozaU63/UpB3kdEQQh2lS1e_w11N-Q.

In a world of media, reading does not occupy center-space in the child’s mind and engagement with reading often needs to be conceptualized in different ways. Your efforts in this direction have been highly successful. We are curious to know how you did this.
My most popular program is FaB. Face a Book Challenge is an innovative summer reading programme to promote the reading habit and develop information literacy skills during the summer holidays (April-May), followed by continuous and yearlong activities to evaluate its effectiveness.

The participants (FaB Challengers) have to do four activities under this project: Read a Book, write a review, prepare a scrapbook (My Little Book) on the selected book, shoot a one-minute video, and present an item for the school assembly. This project won the KVS National Innovations and Experimentation Award for Teachers, 2015-16. Project blog: https://faceabookinfo.wordpress.com/.

Another popular program, Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) is a whole school annual mass reading program where all students, teachers and other staff members read for a specific period of time (One Hour) on a pre-announced day. Children are urged to read any book except textbooks during the program.

Yet, even with these programs my eye was on the non-reader, or just about to become a reader. I realized that peer reading worked better with these readers and gave space to more children. I designed ‘Read my Buddy‘ (RmB) which is a collaborative peer-reading program (2016) aimed at transforming moderate readers into fervent readers and helping them become better learners, through mentoring by peers and teachers.

Through your programs and innovations you have democratized the library space, offering a variety of platforms for access to the community. Did you also look at the library space as instrumental in developing social responsibility?
Yes, we did, in 2013 we launched Gift a Book & Get a Friend, a collaborative social responsibility program. In addition to helping children in schools that lack a well-stocked library to get access to the world of literature, the program also sensitizes our students to social realities beyond the school walls. The initiative has connected more than 2000 students from 7 schools and shared more than 4000 books so far. Project site: http://IibrarysociaIconnect.wordpress.com.

The Little Open Library (LOLib) was another initiative in the same direction. It was inaugurated in 2017 to share one’s favourite books with the community. Anyone may take a book from the LOLib. But she or he has to leave a book in return, which may be taken by someone else.

All these innovative experiments have increased the online visibility and social acceptance of the school and library tremendously. Since these were the first of its kind initiatives in the country, many schools and school libraries replicated them.

Congratulations, Faisal Sir, many of your info-innovations are being replicated by a large number of other CBSE schools in the country giving visibility to the library space and vision. What would you advise budding library educators?
Try to make the library a safe haven for children. It is not necessary that they visit and stay in the library only for reading and reference. They must always be welcomed in the library when they feel confused, stressed and exhausted. The space will give them comfort where they can sit, relax and reflect. I believe, an environment where you are surrounded by books and readers, will definitely kindle in you an interest that may transform you into a good reader in the future. Counselling and career guidance are two other important services of a school library and programmes may be planned to support these objectives. The library shall also act as a space that allows free flow of ideas leading to democratic discussions and debates. The freedom we give students to express their views will definitely help them become independent thinkers and informed citizens. Dr. S. R. Ranganathan, father of Indian Library Science said, “The result of modern rethinking on education is to make the library the heart of the school, from which every activity in the school radiates and by which it all gets irradiated” (Ranganathan, 1962). Library educators must strive to create such a dynamic, free and open space (physical/virtual) filled with format and device independent resources, and buzzing with engaging activities to develop learning, literacy and life skills. I feel that a school library must be a space where minds meet and ideas pop up!

Nivedita Bedadur works with marginalized children in different locations by volunteering or consulting with organizations like Read A Story and Care India. She is a Visiting Faculty at Azim Premji University and works in the areas of curriculum development, text book writing and assessment. She can be reached at nitavbedadur@gmail.com.

S.L. Faisal is TGT (Librarian) at Kendriya Vidyalaya (Shift-I) Pattom. Currently he is pursuing research on the impact of school libraries on academic achievement of students for his PhD. Integration of ICT in the School Library, innovations to support teaching and learning and initiatives to develop social responsibility and sharing are his core areas of contribution in education. More details at www.slfaisal.com.