LAHORE – The Applied Socio-Economic Resource Center (ASR), a reputed NGO, has donated their 35-year-old library, which included more than 15,000 books, journals, thesis, and reports, to the Government College University Lahore for the promotion of research in social sciences especially women’s and gender studies.
GCU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr. Hassan Amir Shah and ASR Executive Director Ms. Nighat Said Khan on Friday signed an accord, for the transfer of library, at a graceful ceremony organized by the Directorate of Academic Planning & External Links at the University’s Meeting Rooms.
The university’s academic heads and the senior management of ASR were also present at the occasion.
The donated library also contained more than 1,800 volumes of media reports on different issues including human rights violations.
They are estimated to be more than 0.3 million news clippings. The library also contained video lectures of eminent foreign social scientists on a wide range of subjects.
Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Nighat Said Khan said that they had set up this library in 1983 for pure research and academic purposes at the ASR’s Institute of Women’s Studies, Lahore. “No activism could stand alone until you meaningfully research about it and academically study its various dimensions,” she added.
Ms. Nighat said that different universities requested them for this library but they felt most comfortable with this historic institution i.e. GCU which had produced eminent luminaries in almost all fields of life.
She hoped that the GCU would also set up the Women and Gender Studies Department soon and this donated library would be a great resource for it. She also briefed the university’s faculty about the working of ASR and their research projects in Pakistan.
Vice Chancellor Prof Shah expressed gratitude to the ASR management, saying that this was one of the finest book collection donated to GCU in the last many decades.
As per MoU, the ASR and GCU have also agreed to hold joint seminars, conferences and workshops.
