How Special Public Library Services are Governed in India

Public libraries in India serve everyone, but “everyone” is not a single, uniform group. A toddler learning to recognise pictures, a visually impaired student preparing for a competitive exam, and a farmer in a village with no library building all need very different things from the same public library system. To meet these needs, India has built special public library services: children’s libraries, services for persons with disabilities, and mobile libraries. What is less obvious, but just as important, is how these services are governed. Who funds them? Who runs them day to day? Which laws and agencies hold them together? This post explains the governance behind three key special services and why each one needs a structure of its own.

Why special services need their own governance 🔗

A general public library can be run by a state library directorate, a local body, or a library authority created under state legislation. But specialised services do not fit neatly into this routine arrangement. They require dedicated budgets, trained staff, special materials, and often partnerships outside the regular library system. A parliamentary review of central libraries even recommended that the central and state governments, along with the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation, prepare a master plan to revive public libraries for special groups such as children, the differently abled, the elderly, and ethnic minorities. In other words, governance for these groups is treated as a deliberate policy task, not an afterthought.

The thread running through all three services is the RRRLF. Set up in May 1972 under the Ministry of Culture, it is the central nodal agency that funds and supports the public library movement across the country, working in cooperation with state and union territory library authorities. It channels money through matching schemes, where a state must contribute its own share, and non-matching schemes, which the Foundation funds fully. Children’s sections, accessibility support, and mobile library services all flow through these schemes, which is why understanding the RRRLF is the starting point for understanding special-service governance.

Children’s libraries 🔗

Children are not small adults, and a children’s library cannot simply be a smaller version of a general one. It needs age-appropriate books, picture rooms, storytelling spaces, and sometimes play and audiovisual corners. This is why a dedicated governance structure matters: someone has to decide on child-safe spaces, select suitable collections, and train staff who can work with young readers.

The need for a dedicated structure 🔗

Governance for children’s services usually operates at two levels. At the policy and funding level, the RRRLF supports the creation of children’s libraries and children’s sections inside general public libraries, treating children’s corner development as a specific grant category. At the operational level, state governments run these services through their library or cultural affairs directorates. The Bishnu Nirmala Children’s Library in Guwahati, for example, functions under the Directorate of Library Services under Assam’s Department of Cultural Affairs, and is open to children without any formal membership requirement. This shows how a single children’s library sits inside a clear administrative chain: a state directorate above it, and a defined service model below.

How children’s services are funded and supported 🔗

The financial backbone has historically come through the RRRLF, which has assisted hundreds of state central and district libraries and supported children’s sections within general public libraries across decades of operation. Because children’s reading habits feed directly into literacy and education goals, this service is also linked to broader cultural and education policy. A national-level review even suggested that public libraries provide virtual learning facilities for school children, signalling that children’s library governance is increasingly expected to cover digital access too. The governance challenge here is consistency: a well-funded children’s section in one district can sit beside a neglected one in another, depending on how seriously the local authority treats it.

Libraries for the physically challenged 🔗

Services for persons with disabilities, especially those with visual and other print disabilities, have the most distinctive governance model of the three. This is because they sit at the intersection of library policy, disability rights law, and copyright law. A general library directorate alone cannot solve the problem of producing Braille books or legally converting copyrighted works into accessible formats.

The legal framework that drives governance 🔗

Two legal pillars shape this service. First, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, which requires conformance to accessibility standards, including in information and communication. Second, copyright law: India was the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty, on 24 July 2014, which addresses the global “book famine” faced by print-disabled readers. The treaty obliges member countries to create copyright exceptions allowing works to be reproduced and distributed in accessible formats for blind, visually impaired, and otherwise print-disabled persons. India had already amended its Copyright Act in 2012 to permit fair use of published works for the benefit of disabled persons. These laws give libraries the legal authority to make and share accessible books, which is the foundation of the entire governance model.

Who governs and delivers the service 🔗

The administrative anchor is the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, working through institutes such as the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities (NIEPVD). NIEPVD hosts a National Accessible Library providing materials in Braille, large print, audio, and e-pub formats, serving tens of thousands of members and housing a large collection of Braille volumes.

The flagship example of multi-agency governance is Sugamya Pustakalaya, India’s largest online library for blind and print-disabled readers. It is a digital library offering accessible books in multiple languages from Indian and global sources like Bookshare and the Accessible Books Consortium. Crucially, it is governed as a collaboration between TCS, the Daisy Forum of India, and NIEPVD, the government’s contributor. This is a deliberate design: a government institute provides legitimacy and material, a non-profit network coordinates accessible-content producers, and a technology partner runs the platform. A parliamentary update noted that sixteen libraries are empanelled with Sugamya Pustakalaya to widen its reach. For a public library or university, the governance route is to become a member of the Daisy Forum of India or subscribe, after which it can offer the full accessible collection to its qualifying readers.

Mobile libraries 🔗

A mobile library, often a van fitted with bookshelves, takes the library to people who cannot reach a building. Its purpose is geographic equity: serving remote villages, scattered hamlets, and underserved urban pockets. Governance here is less about specialised materials and more about logistics, routing, vehicle maintenance, and staffing on the move.

How mobile services are managed and funded 🔗

The RRRLF is again central. From its founding, the Foundation was meant to improve public libraries especially in remote rural areas, and it provides specific assistance for the development of Rural Book Deposit Centres and Mobile Library Services. State and union territory library authorities apply for this funding and then operate the vans through their own directorates. The Goa State Central Library, for instance, lists mobile library development among the RRRLF financial assistance schemes it can access. This two-tier model, where the central agency funds and the state operates, keeps national reach connected to local knowledge of which routes and communities need service most.

Where mobile libraries fit in national policy 🔗

Mobile services also connect to larger missions. The RRRLF acts as the central agency for the National Mission on Libraries for administrative, planning, and budgeting purposes, which aims to modernise and network public libraries. As digital infrastructure spreads, the governance of mobile libraries is gradually shifting from “books on wheels” toward mobile access points that may also carry internet connectivity and digital content. The Delhi Public Library, established in 1951 as a joint venture between the Government of India and UNESCO, served as an early working model that implemented mobile library services and children’s sections as part of modern public library practice. The core governance question for mobile services remains practical: ensuring vans are funded, maintained, staffed, and routed so they genuinely reach the populations that have no other access.

Bringing the three together 🔗

All three special services share a common governance logic. A central nodal agency, mainly the RRRLF, provides funding and direction; state directorates and library authorities handle daily operation; and, where needed, specialised institutes, non-profits, and technology partners step in to handle what the routine system cannot. The differences lie in the details. Children’s services lean on education and cultural policy, disability services are anchored in rights and copyright law with multi-agency platforms, and mobile services are driven by logistics and rural development goals. Understanding these structures matters because the quality of a special service usually depends less on good intentions and more on whether a clear governance chain exists to fund it, run it, and hold it accountable.

What do you think? If you were redesigning the governance of one of these services, which would you prioritise first, and why? And do you think a single unified framework could govern children’s, disability, and mobile services together, or are their needs simply too different to manage under one structure?

References

1. https://www.online.rrrlf.gov.in/showAboutPage
2. https://culturalaffairs.assam.gov.in/portlet-innerpage/children-library
3. https://telanganatoday.com/rewind-written-words-for-visually-impaired
4. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40319-023-01410-y
5. https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1595860.html
6. https://depwd.gov.in/en/sugamya-pustakalaya/
7. https://library.iitd.ac.in/rpd
8. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2114797
9. https://prsindia.org/policy/report-summaries/functioning-of-central-libraries-in-the-country
10. https://centrallibrary.goa.gov.in/rrrlf-schemes
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mission_on_Libraries_India