Picture Courtesy: Sushil Awale

This week I’m at the DWIT Library. This is one of my favorite place in Deerwalk campus. It is located on the second floor of building 3, next to the department of English. I remember visiting the library on my first day at DWIT, and it has, ever since, been my favorite place to relax on a stressful day.

The library door opens up to a big spacious room with lots of light entering the room. The library was recently redecorated and now it looks very spacious and empty. The librarian’s desk is on the left behind the glass wall as one enters the library. There is a big round table in the middle of the room which can sit around ten people. It is the perfect place for doing group studies and homework. On the right side, a long table stretches along the wall which is segregated to facilitate individual study areas.

One of my personal favorite place in the library is where the cushions are. The comfortable cushions are a perfect place to relax and enjoy a book or use a laptop. But, despite all these study places, the library still lacks a secluded individual study space where one can study without any disturbances.

There are more than 1300 books in the library and they are all stacked up on the shelves in one of the corners of the room. The book shelves in the library don’t make up half the space in the library. The library houses many course books which are meticulously arranged according to the semester. The students can borrow up to three books at a time. The course books must be returned within two weeks and the non-course books within three weeks.

One of the shelves is dedicated to non-academic books which was recently updated with the suggested books from the students. The Deerwalk Literature Society also contributes to this section by providing books that they have finished in the book discussion sessions. The library lacks book in the genre of leadership, management, self-help, history, and biography. There is also no availability of newspapers, journals, and magazines. However, there is a dedicated router installed in the library for the students to use the internet. The library also provides photocopy and scanning services to the students at the bare minimum price.

Unlike, the other college libraries here in Nepal, DWIT Library is solely run by the students. Every semester, an internship opportunity opens up and four students are selected as interns for the library. The four interns circulate their duty according to their free time. This means that one can borrow or return a book only during the specified time i.e. 7 am to 9 am and 3 pm to 7 pm but the library opens at 7 am and closes at 7pm.

A library is the heart of any academic institution. The volume of books in the library tells a lot about the institution. And, for a college like DWIT, this certainly needs to be worked on. However, the environment in the library makes it my favorite place to hang out on the campus.

“Where’s Sushil?” is a series started by one of our reporters Sushil Awale. The series explores different places in Deerwalk campus and informs DWIT students and Non-DWIT audience providing them with description, facts, and features of the covered places.