The Amtul-Arifa Reading Room, established at the Government College University (GCU) Lahore Postgraduate Library with a donation of Rs 3 million by the GCU English Department Chairperson Professor Dr Nosheen Khan, was inaugurated on Wednesday.
GCU Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Ikramul Haq, Dean of Arts and Social Sciences Professor Dr Khalid Perviaz, Chief Librarian Abdul Waheed and a large number of eminent Ravians and GCU faculty were also present at the ceremony.
Nosheen donated Rs 3 million to perpetuate the memory of her late mother Professor Amtul Hayee – a professor of history at the Lahore College for Women – and her late sister Arifa Khan – a lecturer in psychology at the Government Nawaz Sharif College. She desired to use the profit generated through this amount to purchase latest books on history, political science, psychology and literature in English.
Addressing the occasion, Abdul Waheed opined that book-reading was pivotal in the preservation and promotion of civilisations.
He shed light on the utility of donations in cash and in the form of personal library collections to the public sector libraries. The GCU Lahore Library had received the highest number of personal collections and cash donations in Pakistan, he said. He specified that contrary to general practice, the donors did not charge a single penny from the GCU since they had faith in the university’s system of preserving books for the sake of posterity.
The GCU vice chancellor stressed the expansion of library services digitally as well as conventionally to facilitate scientific research. He termed Nosheen’s donation a trail blazer for the academia and the financially sound segments of the society.
