A Decade Long Journey as a eLibrary Volunteer

Linux Talk at DoCSE, Kathmandu University

There is this tradition in our department, DoCSE, Kathmandu University (KU) of organizing Linux Talks for the freshers who join the department. Linux Talk was organized to make the freshers familiar with Free and Open Source Software. After I joined the KUCC the first event in which I participated was Linux Talk. Some of my seniors organized a knowledge-sharing session on FOSS, Linux, How it got started, The FOSS Momentum, FOSS Nepal and KUOSC, LTSP, and all. It was how I came to know about Help Nepal Network's E-Library Project.

Help Nepal Network eLibrary Project

The goal of the eLibrary project is to have "one eLibrary per district". It was the year 2006-2007 when a few final year students from Pulchwok Campus decided not to go on their Industrial Visit to India. But instead, they wanted to do something noble for society through Information Technology. That was the time when the first e-Library deployment took place at Dang. After that to date HELP NEPAL Network has elibraries in 50+ districts of Nepal. Pick the name of any three districts in your mind, one of them has our E-Library installed.

My Journey as a Volunteer in eLibrary

In my first semester, I joined the Computer Club and was actively involved in KUOSC events promoting Free and Open Source Software. Actually, I was learning a lot about open-source tools. In my second semester, I got the opportunity to be a part of Monitoring eLibrary in three districts. I went to Surkhet, Dailekh, and Bardiya for e-Library Monitoring with my senior Sagar Pathak . The year was 2012. Should be mid-2022. I had very little knowledge of doing technical troubleshooting so all I did during the monitoring was check the logs of commands the students/teacher typed in their terminal history. Sagar dai did the rest, talking with school management, discussing with students and teachers, and examining whether students were exploring the contents of eLibrary.

Then it was organizing Teacher's Training, Training of Trainee, Volunteers Training, Monitoring, and Deployment with my friends from Computer Science. I remember my friend Ashish Belwase , Bhupal Rai , Mrigendra Chaudhary used to provide training and help us with technical aspects of Linux. Later I traveled to Kushma for the E-Library Deployment, SOlukhumbu for Monitoring, Lalitpur for deployment, my own district Kavre for monitoring, and a few other districts which I do not recall. It was always fun and memorable to explore new districts, meet teachers, and students and learn so much from them.

Today's E-Library Volunteer's Training

Help Nepal was more focused on disaster relief and physical infrastructure development in the earthquake-affected areas. Later, the Corona Pandemic made everything shut. After almost two and half years Anil Shrestha managed to pull up this volunteer training by coordinating with KUCC. We shared our experience, technical knowledge to the undergraduate students of CS, CE and AI, DoCSE. This gave us hope after seeing around 20 participants who attended after doing a technical assignment prepared by Anil and Shubham Joshi . Roshendra Dhoj Khadka our dear brother made us nostalgic sharing his effort to push the eLibrary project. He shared the journey of how eLibrary started and how the senior volunteers made things happen. It was such an awesome experience today. He also sahred about the next deployment in Dadeldhura for which the charity program was initiated by Prabin Gautam dai. Correct me if I'm wrong on the details!

What's Next?

It was just a long delay due to other priority focus from Help Nepal Network and earthquake, later the pandemic. But the enthusiasm hasn't been low. The senior volunteers currently living abroad are always asking how can we continue the project and how to review our ambition. Freshers from University are exploring the LSP technology for deployment. We were also discussing how can we improvise this whole elibrary architecture. Maybe cloud containerization could be a solution to revamp the elibrary project. Roshendra Dai is always ready for new ideas and actively looking for donations that can make another deployment. So this thing will get going. We will definitely deploy elibraries in all areas of country.

How can Volunteers Help? Especially to the past volunteers who were previously a part of eLibrary.

Remember the fun we had while we went for deployments and monitoring? Remember those warm greetings, and gratitude from students and teachers in the schools you went to? Remember being called "Namaste Sir" by someone the age of your parents when you went there as a Computer Expert? Help Nepal definitely provided you a lot at a very early age which might have been a special lesson for being humble. It might have helped you in your higher studies, or in your work in being a leader at what you all are doing today.

It's time for payback by helping the library resume to how it was before. It can be your expertise that you can contribute. It can be your network that you can help the volunteers in approaching the donation of computers and funds. It can be a donation campaign that you can conduct in your university, organization, or anywhere in the world. We will need the help you can offer.

Also, there is a WhatsApp group of eLibrary volunteers where we are brainstorming ideas. Reach out and we can join and discuss further.

Few Glimpses from the Training today: