ludhiana book nook at the police lines becomes the firstever library in the state to have opened its doors to every child up to the age of 18 for free reading cultural activities and computer class it all started with creating a readingcumactivity area for the wards of police personnel last august which now welcomes the children from the citys slums as well developed by saanjh ludhiana commissionerate in collaboration with ngo aas ehsaas the library has 50 daily readers it started with the registration of 20 children of police personnel and has now grown to 5000 regular members including children from the underprivileged background the library is the brainchild of additional deputy commissioner of police adcp headquarters adcp iii and saanjh district community police officer pragya jain she felt the need for a reading hall in the city for children she told toi i come from a small town in uttar pradesh called baraut which lacked reading resources while my counterparts were wellread to bring everyone on the same platform there was a need to create infrastructure where 5 to the 18 year olds of the city and its slums could come to read routinelyshe managed to create that kind of an aesthetic environment infrastructure to inculcate the habit of reading among the children she said i want the children of the city to use this facility to the maximum and get motivated to study well get a job and serve society most of the books and toys at the libray have come from donation through various sourcespragya said we had 1000 books on the initial day and now the count has reached almost 3000 the titles are in english punjabi and hindi and cover various genres such as fiction nonfiction entertainment educational activity books and encyclopedia it includes titles by internationa authors the library is a room that was once overloaded with police files it was transformed into a childrens library in just 72 hours the aesthetic ambiance with a thematic starstudded tent board games and indoor educational activities attracts the children to reading the library is fully airconditioned with 4 cctv cameras and can adjust 100 children at a time it also has racks for shoes and bags besides washroom and drinking water facilitybook nook conducted a weeklong summer camp for 70 children including 40 from the underprivileged section computers class drawing art and craft rhyme and storytelling were various activities organized for the 48 year olds they acquired reading and speaking skills and were engaged in mathematics and science quizzes besides sports activities for 9 years olds and above the children also learnt fireless cooking gift wrapping and caligraphy ruchi bawa of ngo aas ehsaas said our focus is on digital literacy for which we have installed two computers at the librarys elearning station with internet access to online resources created by the countrys best authors we also have subscribed to educational platforms for classes v to xii