AIOU has Asia’s biggest book warehouse

Islamabad: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) enjoys special distinction, having Asia’s biggest Book Warehouse, with capacity of over 5 million books.

According to the University’s Press and Publication department, such a large number of books are available in the warehouse each time to meet the needs of its 1.3 million students. The printing network is largest one in the country, where an average 3.5 million books get published in each semester. The department maintains quality and high standard of the entire books’ publication process, keeping in view the instructions of the Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Shahid Siddiqui.

Automatic latest printing, cutting and folding machines have been made available to handle this huge task. Most of the machinery is imported one. Thirty percent work is done through in-house printing process, while the seventy percent is out-reach arrangements. There are about forty registered well-qualified printing houses in the country that deal with the big job.

Anyhow the sensitive work is done within the university that includes academic degrees and exam answer’s books. The AIOU is the country’s top educational institution in term of students’ enrolment, academic structure and books’ handling. Strength of its tutors is around 75 thousands. These are the outstanding number, involved in student assignments' assessment process.

The University dispatch books along with allied material to around 700,000 students in one semester, spreading over a period of six months. For the current semester, it has mailed the books to 600,000 students so far. The rest are expected to get the same within a week time. They are mostly of post-graduate-level.

As per the directives of the vice chancellor, the employees of the Mailing Department work in two shifts to ensure timely dispatch of the books to the students. This aimed at giving enough study time to the students enabling them to submit their course assignments within a stipulated time.

A new computerised tracking system has been introduced, facilitating its thousands of students to check books’ mailing status. A new website (mailing.aiou.edu.pk) has been launched for this purpose. A student could easily find out the books’ mailing position by entering his roll number or admission’s challan number in the mailbox.