Representatives of 19 government first grade colleges and a Karnataka Public School spread across Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru and Davanagere districts received the books.
Srikantha Kudige, a retired professor of Kannada, inaugurating the programme, lamented that in recent times the publishing of Kannada books had hardly received any encouragement. He said the State government, too, had contributed to the present situation by failing to procure books regularly and distribute them to public libraries as a measure to encourage the reading habit.
H.L. Omshivaprakash, digital archivist and entrepreneur, delivered a talk on the digitisation of Kannada literary works. He elaborated on the activities of Servants of Knowledge, a non-profit organisation, through which thousands of Kannada books, including rare literary works, had been digitised and made available to the public. The organisation had digitised 45,000 books of the National Law School of India University in Bengaluru, besides more than 4,500 PhD and MPhil theses of Hampi University. The digitised content was available to those interested in research, he said.
Similarly, he said, the plays of Ninasam at Heggodu and several Yakshagana presentations had been made available online through the Sanchi Foundation.
Kannada Book Authority chairperson Manasa, member Akshatha Humchadakatte, Shivamogga Kannada Sahitya Parishat president D. Manjunath, Registrar of DVS Institutions S.K. Manjunath, and the Head of the Department of Kannada at DVS College were among those present at the programme.