Anna Centenary Library

Anna centenary library would be inaugurated by the Tamil nadu CM on September 15,2010  to coincide with the birth anniversary of former CM Annadurai at Kotturpuram Chennai .Mr.Karunanidhi has a penchant for constructing landmark buildings bridges flyovers  and erecting unique statues during his regime.Inaguration of the Anna Centenary libraray would be another feather in his cap. ACL would be a world class library . It would be the second biggest library in Asia and the biggest in South Asia .The foundation stone for this massive library was laid in 2008.This is a 170 crore project.The library would be housed in 9 floors.The library would be situated in an 8 acre land at Kotturpuram.ACL would be an eco friendly green library providing natural lighting for better reading .The library would have more than 1.2 million books, e-journals and e-books on a wide range of assorted  subjects in this nine storeyed library .Official sources claim a team comprising  leading academicians have scouted the books  included in this prestigious library of Asia .JNU,IIT's and IIM's have been requested to provide their online public access catalogs (OPAC) to enable procurement of the same titles to ACL.It is believed MGR medical university alone has provided over 33K titles.An expert committee has categorized books on each subject in to 3 levels namely Beginer's ,Middle level and Advanced level.In addition ACL is planning to sign MOU with leading world universities.The children's section is housed in ground floor.The kids section alone would comprise more than40 K titles besides journals and short films.This air conditioned building has a special carpeted floor for children with artificial tree,and walls adorned with cartoon characters and a lush green landscape to move around.Noted art director  Thotta Tharani has set up the children's section. The wooden chairs, tables and book racks are all  lilliputian to suit the children.There will be an audio visual system playing kids favorite characters on one side.The library will have a separate section in the ground floor for the vision impaired .This Braille system would contain 25 K titles and few talking books . Most importantly facilities are available in this section to convert any required book in to Braille ,in case the visually impaired person makes a request.The ground floor also houses a  separate section for Senior citizens with easy chairs .The ground floor has a VVIP lounge,reference books   dailies and magazine section.A separate floor has been earmarked for Tamil books .Efforts are made to collect rare Tamil manuscripts .The fourth floor is dedicated to Dravidian and other Indian languages.The fifth floor has a separate  section dedicated to civil service aspirants.Government documents will be made available in the sixth floor.The seventh floor will contain oriental manuscripts and donor collections.Seventh floor will contain audio video displays.In addition to all these facilities the library will have two auditoriums to host Book release functions.The indoor auditorium will have a seating capacity of 1200 .The amphitheater on the terrace will have a seating capacity of 800. A food court is also planned in one of the floors.An escalator has also been put in place between all floors.A separate power substation 3200 KV has been installed in the premises.An Advanced  Library management system in in place .This IT infra structure has been provided by Spanco Ltd.This is a most advanced Library management technology available globally. ACL is set to make reading a blissful experience to chennites.Thangam Thennarasu the state minister has worked tirelessly for this ambitious project. Kudos for  this great  achievement.