Hare School library closed for over 2 years

It's been more than two years that the library of city's one of the oldest schools, Hare School, is closed mainly due to the absence of a librarian.
Besides, lack of maintenance of the library, on the second floor of the school, on College Street in central Kolkata, are damaging its huge collection of books, several of which are close to be century-old.
Since the last librarian, Nandini Dutta, retired in May 2012, the library has been under lock and key, Headmaster Dr Sunil Kumar Das said.
"We don't have any librarian now. We have written to the Education Department a couple of times but we are yet to get any response from them," Das told PTI.

"Maintenance is being hampered due to absence of a librarian. The books are being damaged not only by paper mites but also because of lack of cleaning," he said.
In this two-and-half years since Dutta's retirement, dusting was done only twice in the library, another official of the Hare School administration said.

Describing the room as "unfit" to be a library, Dutta said, "The library was almost my life. It has a very good collection of books on literature, science, arts and commerce. There are several old books of good value but I will say that the room is totally unfit to be a library.

"There is no proper ventilation and air circulation is affected. During summer the room gets very hot and in the winter it's just the opposite. I used to keep one of the two doors closed to keep the books safe from being stolen," Dutta, who has been the Hare School's librarian for 37 years, said.
"I think books are definitely getting damaged because of non-maintenance. I feel depressed hearing this," she said.
Dutta suggested that the library must be shifted to some other place for proper maintenance of the books.
"Students especially of senior classes were benefited from our library. But I believe it will be better if it is shifted to some other place," Dutta said.

When contacted, state School Education Secretary Arnab Roy said he did not know about this and would look into it.