As the country celebrated the ninth National Library Day on Wednesday, the majority of the big libraries in the Capital which were devastated by last year’s earthquakes are struggling to resume operations.

A report of the Ministry of Education shows more than 60 libraries in the country were damaged by the April 25 quake and its aftershocks. The majority of libraries in the valley are in a sorry state.

Buildings housing the National Library at Pulchowk in Lalitpur and Keshar Library at Kesharmahal had collapsed in the disaster. Over 100,000 books of the National Library have been kept in 5,000 sacks and stored in a school. Over 65,000 books, journals, magazines of the Keshar Library have been kept in 100 sacks. Both the libraries have remained closed to the public since the quake. The chief of the National Library Yadav Chandra Niraula said they were looking to rent a house to run the library.

The second floor of the Central Library at Tribhuwan University (TU) was severely damaged in the disaster and consequently more than 100,000 books are still lying on the floor. “As the book racks were badly damaged in the quake, we are not able to provide books our reader wants,” said Indra Adhikari, assistant librarian at the TU. Similarly, the massive quake left wide cracks on the walls of the library building in Dillibazaar and destroyed the library buildings of the National Planning Commission inside Singha Durbar and Madan Puraskar in Patan Dhoka, Lalitpur. Library Archival Management Committee record shows there are 41,472 libraries in the country. Of them, 1,772 libraries are in the varsities and colleges; 37,000 in schools; 200 in government offices; 1,500 are run by communities and 1,000 run by NGO and local bodies.