Teacher turns 16,000 book collection into local resource in West Bengal’s Chakdah

The free-for-all library at his residence has helped many scholars and students through the years 

A teacher and book lover from West Bengal’s Chakdah has collected over 16,000 books and made a library for the locals. His initiative has won him several awards from across the country as his collection has helped many students and scholars through the years. 

Starting in 2002, Debabrata Chatterjee, a 44-year-old teacher who teaches English has been awarded the Highest Book Buyer Award at the Kolkata International Book Fair for over five years in a row. He has spent lakhs of rupees each year to buy books at the festival. According to him he has above a crore worth of books under his collections. 

Mr. Chatterjee has also received multiple honorary doctorates from places like University of Maryland and other reputed universities from across the world. 

“Back in the day it was in our culture to depend on the library to get all information and study materials for our school and colleges. But now the reading habit is dying. Students either Google things or do not make the effort to visit a library,” Mr. Chatterjee said. But his free-for-all library has helped many students in the area in their academic careers. 

Every evening students drop by to his house and shuffle through the books and take their pick. He has lost around 200 books in this process, but Mr. Chatterjee has no regrets. His library does not have a name or a book log system, it works on trust he has developed between the locals. 

He gets in touch with different publishers from across the country to get his hands on the rarest of books to add to his collection. 

Published - December 12, 2024 08:35 pm IST