Source : Times of India
A year after a major fire gutted the 33-year-old library at the Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education(SIMSREE), the institute has managed to restore over 75% of the structure. The library, which will take at least three months to be opened for students, will have an exclusive loft for researchers, a reading area and a radio frequency identification (RFID) system to track books. There will be no electrical wirings inside the renovated library.
On the morning of December 25, 2016, a fire broke out at the library of SIMSREE, one of city’s leading management institutes, and engulfed about 90% of the books stored there. Since the roof was made of asbestos, it was blown off and the fire went upwards and therefore, was contained only in the library. The institute lost about 16,500 books, documents of students, journals and reviews in the fire.
“The institute’s alumni were very forthcoming and have donated about Rs 5 lakh for the books. Almost 90% of the books that were lost in the fire have been procured from various sources. Many of them had started donating books within a week of the fire. The government too was very co-operative in providing sanctions,” said Manoj Bhide, incharge director at the institute.
Professor Rajesh Srivastava said that they have introduced a loft at the centre of the library that will be available exclusively for researchers. “We have also added a reading area below the loft for students. Since we were anyway renovating it, we thought of introducing additional facilities for students,” he said.
The civil works is taking a little longer than usual as it is a government institute and requires multiple sanctions, added the professor.
