The Shree Krishnan Hindu temple has stood in Marston Road, Wolverhampton since 1979. For many years the temple’s leaders have been planning to open a learning centre within the temple.  | | Tirathram Bhardwaj |
Louise Walton, a Library Link Worker, with Wolverhampton City Council takes up the story: “Over the past 18 months I’ve been working here in the temple to turn their collection of books into a user friendly library for all of the community. “Mr Bhardwaj, the organiser of the temple, went about devising ways and means of collecting books, many were donated. There were over 300 books donated by Wolverhampton Libraries to the temple. But obviously they were all in a bit of a higgledy piggledy state and they wanted some help with the cataloging and categorisation of the books, so that they could be accessed easily. “I work for the Library Without Walls project, funded by ABCD (All Saints and Blakenhall Community Development regeneration project). So I’m based in and around this area and my line manager, Kal Dale, got together with Mr Bhardwaj and decided we could do something through our project."  | | Louise Walton |
The books in the library have been categorised, colour coded, covered with plastic and they all have issue cards. Access to the internet is also available in the centre. “We’ve created a database as well, so every single item that’s in this library is on a electronic database, that people can use and search” said Louise. “In order for the library to be self sufficient once we’ve gone, I also created an instruction manual. So if they have any new stock donated they can integrate that into their existing stock and keep the library going. “There’s a lot of religious texts, but it’s not just Hinduism its all sorts of different religions and faiths that we’ve got in here. There are also novels, poetry books, children’s story books, history books, science, y’know there’s a bit of everything.”  | | Shree Krishnan Mandir |
“It’s the first time I’ve worked in a temple and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been fantastic, I’ve learnt so much and made some really nice friends. They’ve been so welcoming, and I’m sorry to leave, in a way.” KAL DALE The opening ceremony of Wolverhampton’s newest community library was part of the temple’s Diwali celebrations. Wolverhampton’s Mayor and the Leader of the City Council were among the dignitaries who attended. Kal Dale, Ethnic Services Manager for Wolverhampton Libraries: ”This library is important because we don’t have a bottomless pit of money in the public libraries service. As the Ethnic Services Manager I want to make sure that there is a diverse collection material available to the Asian communities in Wolverhampton.  | | Kal Dale |
“One of the ways that I thought that collection could be expanded was to work in partnership with this temple, so that we can utilise the collection they had and manage it in such a way that it become accessible to the wider community. “This library is open to everybody regardless of religious background, ethnic background, age, gender – it’s a library for everybody. “This library will be particularly useful for say university students studying religious studies and wanting to know more about Hinduism. An ideal place to come, where they’ve got access to the priests who can talk about the Hindu religion in more detail. “It wasn’t a huge expense – it was expensive in library staff time but that was matched by funding in kind anyway. We had a lot of support from volunteers as well.  | | W'ton's Mayor at the opening |
“I’m not aware of an initiative like this taking place in the UK before. I want to be bold enough to say it is quite ground breaking. It’s the first temple based library which has been supported and developed by the public library service. “I’m really proud of it because for me this is a real example of what community cohesion is about, it’s about bringing people from different faiths to share in the achievements of a particular faith. The more we know about each other, the more we start to respect each other, the more the differences get put aside.” TIRATHRAM BHARDWAJ After the opening ceremony, General Secretary of the temple, Mr Tirathram Bhardwaj, said: “From the very beginning I was thinking of making a place where people can study.  | | Tirathram Bhardwaj |
“Without the proper help, the proper librarians, we couldn’t do anything. It was all a mess beforehand, but you can now look and see how wonderfully well organised this library now is. “The future is now very brilliant. People will come here, to this centre of learning and everybody will enjoy it. Every person who wants to investigate something, they can now use the computer, the internet and we’ve got a big resource of various types of books also. “It’s open to everybody. Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, whosoever wants to come, they’re all welcome here.” OPENING TIMES The temple library’s opening times coincide with the temple’s opening hours which are from 8am to 12:30pm and then from 5pm to 8pm, every day of the week. For more information on Libraries Without Walls contact Louise Walton or Tina Campbell on Wolverhampton 01902 556826. | 
