The 1,584 books given to MJ Library by Mahatma Gandhi have been digitized and uploaded to the Gandhi Heritage Portal. These books are being digitized by the Sabarmati Ashram. The Ashram is helping the library preserve the collection.
Mayor Gautam Shah said that around 1,584 books have been digitized and are available on the eportal associated with Gandhiji. He said that the Mahatma Gandhi referred to these books while preparing his speeches and while writing articles for his journals, Navajivan, and Young India.
Mayor Gautam Shah had given the go-ahead for the digitizing of these donated books by Sabarmati Ashram in 2016 to help preserve the collection. In all, the MJ Library has 7,000 such books which donated by Gandhiji.
Prior to embarking on the historic Dandi March, Gandhiji was looking for a place to donate his personal collection from Sabarmati and Satyagrah Ashrams. "This is a priceless collection and had it been preserved properly, from damage and theft, it would have offered an insight into what Bapu read during his stay in the city since 1915, when he returned from South Africa," said a senior library official.