ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: The Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) library committee has presented a Rs5.1 million budget for 2002, official sources told Dawn.

The committee, at its meeting, presided over by the Dr Masud A. Malik, decided that the maximum allocation for a department would not be more than 10 per cent and not less than four per cent of the total budget.

The sources said the committee had recommended the already approved formula for the distribution of budget allocation. It may be added that the total budget of the library is used on the whims of respective department heads.

According to the agreed formula for the budget, biology department has received the maximum allocation of Rs500,000, and Rs100,000 will be placed at the disposal of vice-chancellor (VC) in the “Reserved Fund” for distribution as needed.

In view of the increasing cost of books and journals, a request for an additional amount of Rs1 million may be made to the vice-chancellor.

An additional amount of Rs2,75,000 has been allocated to the main library (including Rs75,000 for the binding of books). The committee turned down the chemistry department’s request for some additional grant for making photocopies of chemical abstracts.

However, it agreed to the request of Taxila Institute of Asian Civilization that their PhD students should be issued borrower cards for the main library. It was also decided that two books should be issued to the institute’s Phd students at one time if they deposited their library dues and security fee.

The librarian informed the committee that research material could also be borrowed from Muslim countries through Organization of Islamic Conference network of libraries.