News items like these go to prove that people will pay for reading books, if you render meaningful services. Near the locality where I live there is a fee based library called ARESS library. Charges for lending a title is 10% of cost of acquiring the book. This may even come Rs 120 per book per month. She has been in business for more than 10 years. See URL for images: http://www.punemirror.in/pune/civic/Wheeling-out-a-library-for-all/articlesh... Vyasamoorthy ================= Wheeling out a library for all Pune Mirror | Oct 28, 2014, 02.30 AM IST Library Mall (top) currently has around 500 members, and a collection of 7,000-odd books; inset: Nikam with customers (Photo by Nikhil Ghorpade) By: Suktara Ghosh Six yrs after starting a mobile library at Chinchwad, Abhijit Nikam is rolling into Pune. When 24-year-old Abhijit Nikam quit a well-paying job in an automobile spare parts manufacturing company to start a library, all hell broke loose. Neither his family nor his in-laws — he had been married only a year — wanted anything to do with the new venture. Undeterred, Nikam invested his own savings — about Rs 2.5 lakh, bought a van, 1,000 books and started a library-on-wheels at Chinchwad in May 2008. This week, he's ready to roll out a second van and is all set to enter Pune with Library Mall, as the mobile library is known. "Pune has a bigger reading market and I'll begin with rounds of Kothrud, Katraj, Viman Nagar, Kharadi and Vishrantwadi," said the now 29-year-old, who works with a four-member team. He is gearing up to buy around more 2,000 books. An ardent reader himself, propagating Marathi literature and encouraging the young generation to read are mainly what drives Nikam. "People barely read these days and very few children are aware of the richness of Marathi literature. The mobile library is a step towards enhancing knowledge," he said. Of the 7,000-odd books in Nikam's van, almost 5,000 are in Marathi and range across all genres. The rest are in English. Library Mall currently has around 500 members. "I initially spent a lot of time talking to housing society officials and obtaining permission to wait in front of buildings. Initially, only one or two people enrolled, but the numbers have increased slowly," he said. Most of the readers are between 30 and 45 years old. Hemant N Bhagwat, who runs an engineering and management institute in Chinchwad and has been a member of Library Mall for one-and-a-half years, said, "The mobile library works for people like me who can't match the timings of local libraries. Nikam or his team call me before coming in the evening. They have a good collection of Marathi books and my wife, daughter and I are regular readers." Another member, Tushar P Deshpande, feels Library Mall has helped spread the habit of reading at a minimal cost (deposit of Rs 500, registration fee of Rs 250 and a monthly rental of Rs 250 against five books at a time). "There are nearly 100 members from my society in Queenstown. They have a good collection," he gushed. However, Nikam admits he hasn't been able to make a profit yet. "Whatever money we make goes back into the library," he said, adding that he hopes expanding the business would bring in profit. "I had a tough time convincing my wife and brother to help me — they agreed only about four years ago. I knew there wouldn't be much money, but the objective is to spread knowledge," said Nikam. Ask him if he feels online reading is competition for libraries, and he disagrees. "I have set up an online portal, where people can browse. But reading on a Kindle or a tablet can be tiring. And, the physical book can never be replaced," he asserted. -- -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.