What is happening to public libraries? In the US, they are increasingly becoming public and democratic spaces says a programme in Michigan Public Radio. http://michiganradio.org/post/public-library-internet-age-series-michigan-ra... We should aim at such transition in our country too, but at a pace our different communities can adopt. In cities and large towns the transition can be faster than in rural communities. But we should make special efforts to carry along rural communities. I was in Coimbatore a few weeks ago. There the R S Puram public library has a section for people with different disabilities. At the time I visited, there were about ten visually challenged people. Some were using audio books - regular books converted to audio in house. All of them are adept at NVIDIA technology. A couple of volunteers were doing the conversion. A library assistant was helping an autistic child do a puzzle with blocks. The whole section was well organized and the person in charge - himself visually challenged - was very good and ready to help the users. I was very happy that day. They told me that they conducted a 5-day workshop for the visually challenged a few weeks before I visited the library. An expert was invited from Chennai Anna Centenary Library to conduct the workshop and he teamed up with the local expert. The five-day workshop for twenty participants cost them about Rs 60,000/- That I thought was good value for money. Actually I had a chance to speak to some of the participants and I found they had really benefited. Now, what we need is, to replicate such experiences in a very large number of public libraries. Best wishes. Arun http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4398-4658 http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-9925-2009 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.