Chennai/Coimbatore: A day after Madras high court’s rap and nudge, libraries across the state have started to identify and remove the ‘tainted’ books procured from Agal Vilakku Publication. Librarians have also been instructed to keep a log of when the books were purchased and keep the details ready, sources told TOI.At Anna Centenary Library in Chennai, instructions have been issued to staff to complete the exercise in the next two days. “We are yet to ascertain the exact number of books. All books will be separated before the deadline,” said S Kamatchi, chief librarian, at Anna Centenary Library.At Connemara library, also in Chennai, as many as 527 books had been removed from the racks as of Wednesday. Librarian in-charge M Ganesha said the library had received these books for free under the District Libraries Act, 1954. “We are checking to see if there are any more books. There is no communication on whether we should hand over the books to Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC),” he said.At Periyar Arivulagam library in Coimbatore, around 1,800 books have been removed from public access. The books were removed from racks in the Tamil section on the fourth floor and the English sections on the fifth and sixth floors. Library management said the removed books will be sent to their headquarters in Chennai or secured locally for inquiry.In the Nilgiris, district library officer L Clement said about 75% of the work had been completed in 104 libraries. Noting that the state govt had given a three-day deadline, he said the remaining work would be completed by Thursday. He added that most of the identified books were Phoenix-published titles, largely procured last year, while 669 Agal Vilakku-published books received this year remained in cartons.Meanwhile, S Sathishkumar, a Tamil PhD scholar at Bharathiar University, has alleged that books under another imprint, Vintage Press Ltd, kept in the fifth-floor English section at Periyar Arivulagam, were also suspect. He claimed that 257 such books were found with AI-generated text and plagiarism.In Trichy district, at least 1,510 volumes, valued at approximately ₹3.09 lakh, are being withdrawn from around 130 libraries. The collection comprises 1,024 books under more than 40 titles from Agal Vilakku Publishers, worth about ₹2.13 lakh, and 486 books under 46 titles from Phoenix Publishers, worth ₹96,000.
