LAHORE: A reputed NGO, the Applied Socio-Economic Resource Center (ASR), has donated its 35-year-old library that includes more than 15,000 books, journals, theses, and reports, to the Government College University (GCU) Lahore for the promotion of research in social sciences, especially women and gender studies.
GCU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah and ASR Executive Director Nighat Said Khan on Friday signed an accord, for the transfer of library, at a ceremony organised by the Directorate of Academic Planning & External Links at the varsity’s Meeting Rooms. The university’s academic heads and the senior management of ASR were also present.
According the details, the donated library also contains more than 1,800 volumes of media reports on different issues, including human rights violations. They are estimated to be more than 0.3 million news clippings.
Speaking on the occasion, Nighat Said Khan said that they had set up the library in 1983 for pure research and academic purposes at the ASR’s Institute of Women’s Studies Lahore. “No activism can stand alone until you meaningfully research about it and academically study its various dimensions,” she added.
Nighat said that different universities requested them for this library but they felt most comfortable with this historic institution, the GCU, which had produced eminent luminaries in almost all fields.
She hoped that the GCU would also set up the Women and Gender Studies Department soon and the donated library would be a great resource for it. She also briefed the varsity faculty about the working of ASR and their research projects in Pakistan.
Vice Chancellor Prof Shah expressed gratitude to the ASR management and said that this was one of the finest book collections donated to GCU in the past several decades.
As per the MoU, the ASR and GCU have also agreed to hold joint seminars, conferences and workshops.
