Ladies Only Library: Know about 67-year-old library run exclusively by women and girls located at Kochi

KOCHI: A library run exclusively by women and girls is 67 years old. The K.S. Raghavan Memorial Library and Reading Room at the Ernakulam SNV Sadanam, founded by Tapaswini Amma, Sahodaran Ayyappan, Prof. P. S. Velayudhan, Prof. M.K. Sanu and other renaissance leaders, stands as a beacon of women empowerment.

The library was established in 1958 at the Sree Narayana Vidyarthini Sadanam (S.N.V. Sadanam), which was established by Tapaswini Amma in 1921 to accommodate girls pursuing higher education at a time when the government hostels were not accessible to the lower classes. One of the workers of the Sadanam, K.S. Raghavan, who was the State Secretary of Thiru Kochi, died in a plane crash.

The library is used by the hostel residents and the students of Ernakulam Government Girls' High School. Sadanam Trust Secretary M.R. Geetha, Dr. Shanthadevi (Secretary), who served as a scientist for a long time in the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization, and M.P. Sheela (Librarian) are in charge of the library. The library, which operates on two floors, has 37,994 books. The Prof. P.S. Velayudhan Memorial Reference Section and the Sree Narayana Guru Centre are functioning here.

Rabindranath Tagore's words, "There is no greater teacher than reading," have been written in front of the library in a way that even passersby can see. It was Sahodaran Ayyappan who took the initiative for this. SNV Sadanam is a hostel where many prominent people have stayed and studied, including the Malayali politician Dakshayani Velayudhan, whom Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned in 'Mann Ki Baat' last month, and the iron lady of Kerala politics, K.R. Gouri Amma.