From the radio studio to a reading space

Giving a collection a voice

In 2023, Vrishank sat in the 89.4FM studio and made the case for books on air. An appeal on the radio does something a poster cannot: it reaches people who were not already looking for a way to help.

The photographs that follow show what an appeal is worth only if someone does the unglamorous half. Volunteers with armfuls of donated books. Tables of sorting. Titles being separated by reading age and language, because a carton of unsorted books is a problem handed to a teacher rather than a gift given to a child.

The books arrive

One photograph is labelled simply “Books received in Chennai library”. Stacks fill the table, catalogued and ready to be borrowed.

That sequence — the appeal, the collection, the sorting, the shelf — is the whole method in four frames. We have not confirmed how many books this particular drive brought in, and would rather leave the figure out than invent one.