Library

The collection of the Library has a particular focus on Panchayati Raj, decentralised planning, poverty alleviation, rural development, urban development, gender in governance etc. The library has a collection of over 10,000 volumes of books and over 200 journals focussing on these thrust areas. Efforts are on the anvil to digitalise the library and to develop it as a full-fledged information centre on local governance, with state of the art facilities like computer and Internet. With this purpose the construction of a new library complex has been initiated. The development of the Library is facilitated by the Library Advisory Committee(LAC).

Library & Information Services
KILA Library & Information Division is the centre for collection, organization and dissemination of information, data and knowledge on decentralisation and local governance. It aims to provide right information, to the right users, at the right time, through an array of direct or indirect information services [2]. The precise objective of the library is to acquire all relevant data, information and documents pertaining to the academic activities of the Institute. KILA Library holds books, reports, journals and other documents in print or digital form. It creates and distributes a few cd-rom publications and offer phone-in-service on local governance. The division is engaged in promoting digital archiving technologies in sectors closely related to local governance and has evolved a methodology and manual for digital archiving with free software Winisis, Genisis & Greenstone.
The Library & Information Division brought out many documents and manuals for promoting the use of information technologies to support and to bring about local governance in Kerala, as part of its library extension services

CD-ROM Publications
KILA has been focusing on creating/collecting, digital documents, organising them as searchable archives and distributing them as digital collections / CD-ROM libraries in subject areas closely related to decentralisation, aimed at 'information empowerment' of the constituency of people consisting of thinkers, advocates, activists and practitioners of decentralisation. The two cd-rom publications prominent among them are:-

More than two dozen CD-ROM libraries containing around 5000 digital documents are distributed as part of the library services on no-profit basis. Most prominent among them is Community Development Library containing 1785 documents of around 1.6 lakh pages. Maual on Digital Document Archiivng is a publication of KILA intended to promote the concept of digital document archiving using free software tools promoted by Unesco.