Role of CSR in transforming public libraries

The corporate sector has always been instrumental in responding to the key social causes, innovative ideas to incubate and flourish for the developmental Initiatives and societal welfare. The CSR mandate as per Companies Act 2013 and further amendments thereto have given an impetus to change the way the corporates implement their CSR activities in a comprehensive and well defined manner. The country has also seen considerable resources being deployed for out of the box social development endeavours.

Public Libraries as institutions for information, education and engagement have been at the centre of collective community learning for centuries. However, with the advent of technology, they require to reposition and reinventing themselves to start a range of new services, including knowledge kiosks for farmer and fishermen, children spaces for substantiation of scholastic learning or providing alternate learning spaces to out of school children/women/adolescents, serving as information and support centres to deprived and marginalized on government schemes and programs to get benefit of and thereby contributing to the sustainable development agenda of the country.

Therefore, with a view to discuss the strategies, opportunities and challenges and also the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) interventions for reposition and reinventing the public libraries in India, the ASSOCHAM is organizing a round table discussion on “Role of CSR in Transforming Public Libraries” on 3rd February,2017 at ASSOCHAM House, New Delhi.

The initiative is a great opportunity to bring together the diverse institutions and organizations including public and private that work in CSR space.

*For more information, please drop me a mail at [email protected] or call 011- 4655 0555