Just when the vanillin scents of old books and their yellowed out pages seem to have lost lustre in an age of ebooks and kindles, an online lending library that would deliver books at your doorstep could well be flicker of hope for the bibliophiles of a small town like Hosur.
This is what hosurlibrary.com – a start-up initiative by N. Aiswarya Lakshmi intends to do – to tap on the same technology - often condemned to have weaned away the habit of reading - to inspire the act of holding a book and reading yet again.
Launched just a fortnight ago, hosurlibrary.com has about 10,000 hardbound books in English, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. “We purchased books, of which over 7,000 are in English, before setting up basic infrastructure and the website,” says Aishwarya.
For 33-year-old Aiswarya, the seed of an idea germinated a year ago, when she incidentally hit upon an online lending library in Vishakapatnam. “Later, I read about a similar one in Chennai. But the concept is unheard of for a two-tier town such as Hosur and wanted to explore the idea further,” says Aiswarya, who had worked as a lecturer after a B.Tech in her hometown in Tirunelveli, before shifting base to Hosur after marriage.
Tapping on her penchant for books, her management consultant husband funded her start-up with a seed capital of Rs.10 lakh.
“It took 8 months to have the website built based on her research, and a year to meticulously procure books.”
Yet, for a start-up, an exclusive hard-bound lending library could well be expensive. Aiswarya has a different take. “Hardbound books are easy to hold, and one can read it in a reclined posture. So, it was a conscious decision,” she says.
hosurlibrary.com has a meticulous categorisation of genres, which Aiswarya says was conceived after a prolonged study of sites of vendors such as Flipkart.
And taking the business cue from Flipkart, hosurlibrary.com seeks to reach the reader at their doorstep, only here that the books will be lent on a monthly rental of Rs.250.
“Many have given up books. But, an online lending library will enable readers to take to reading yet again, when it gets delivered to their doorstep,” she says.
For now, delivery of books will be made once in two days. “Once the membership grows, we plan to upgrade the delivery system for within the same day,” says Aiswarya, who is toying with the idea of tie-up with local courier services for book delivery.
Just as the book lovers across the globe relish the joys of reading in the wake of the World Book Day, hosurlibrary.com may just ring in the pleasure of reading by enabling easy access to books at one’s doorstep.
