At the Library

During her visits to Dharamsala's Tibetan Children's Village, Foundation Director Nancy Corliss works in the Junior Section Library, which serves more than 500 children.

Hundreds of children come daily to the library eager to read. There is laughter and fun, especially when everyone spends the first 10 minutes marching to warm up their feet.

At the Library, Nancy reads aloud in English to many classes, as well as to individual children. It is essential that the children learn English and hear English spoken by a native. Nancy has made hours of recordings for the children so they can to listen to stories in English when she is not there.

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"The children are teaching me Tibetan as I am teaching them English," says Nancy. "I am now able to manage library time alone. The children think my Tibetan is hysterical, but we can communicate." In 2010, Nancy bought a computer, printer, scanner, and library program. Nancy and the staff began cataloging the inventory. This has expanded to two other TCV libraries where she helped the cataloging process begin. Three other TCV schools have approached Nancy to ask for help to do this.

Hundreds of books need barcodes so Nancy must purchase them. On a recent visit, the library staff entered Tibetan books into the system by writing Tibetan words in English letters and added almost 1,000 Tibetan books to the library catalog. Along the way we have transferred many library books to home libraries. Nancy had 28 bookcases made for some of the homes that are far away from the library.