In 1986, when historian A.R. Venkatachalapathy started visiting the library of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), he did not realise he was commencing a nearly-four-decades-long bond with the institute.
Despite being a commerce student at Vivekananda College, he had made up his mind to become a historian. The MIDS library proved to be the refuge in this pursuit.
With economics-related studies taking pre-eminence at the MIDS, Mr. Venkatachalapathy says one would assume the institute’s library to stock up on works mostly related to economics. However, it maintains an impressive collection on a variety of fields like sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and linguistics. In 2001, when he decided to quit a better paying faculty job at a State-run university to join the MIDS to focus more on research, it was no wonder that the library was one of the key attractions that helped him seal the decision.
