Lok Virsa names library after Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Islamabad The National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage (Lok Virsa) on Tuesday named its renovated library after legendary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz as 'Faiz Heritage Library' during a prestigious ceremony held here at Lok Virsa to launch the digitised catalogue of its Library.

Also, it renovated the library, creating more space for visitors to browse and read books. To mark these historic steps forward, the renovated library is to be opened as "Faiz Heritage Library", in honor of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Lok Virsa's founding father, whose vision and teachings have been a guiding light in Lok Virsa's various endeavours and initiatives.

For the society as a whole, the Faiz Heritage Library provides sources of national, regional, and local identity. The library has a collection of over 32,000 books and journals. Additionally, a collection of 200 books published by Lok Virsa is also available in the library.

 

Lok Virsa Executive Director Dr. Fouzia Saeed while speaking on the occasion said, that the library will serve students, researchers and scholars in their research work on the cultural heritage of Pakistan, adding that numerous manuscripts, original research reports, field surveys and monographs on Pakistani culture will be accessible to all.

“Lok Virsa is a breakthrough in opening up avenues of education for students, teachers of culture, as well as general public. The digitized catalogue will be available on our website,” she said.

Artist and the eldest daughter of renowned poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Salima Hashmi was the chief guest of ceremony. While appreciating the efforts of Lok Virsa, Salima Hashmi said that the current Heritage Library offers unparalleled opportunities for self-directed learning and exploration by people of diverse ages, interests, backgrounds, and abilities.

“It is a sad fact that thousands of rare books housed in our libraries and museums are endangered and unless they are preserved on computer in the digital form, they may soon disappear or get defaced beyond recognition,” she believed.