The University of Pune is planning to set up a music library, housing a collection of priceless old Marathi songs and Hindustani classical music.

Narendra Jadhav, the vice-chancellor of the University of Pune briefed about the project in a press conference recently. “Some music enthusiasts in the city had come to me and expressed willingness to donate their priceless collections to the University of Pune. The university will preserve this collection by creating a dedicated music library,” he said.

The collection will be stored at the Jaykar Library and will have a separate section. “We will digitise all the records so that they can be preserved for a long time. We have plans to make this collection available online,” said Jadhav.

The collection will also have speeches of some prominent speakers in the city in an audio format. “We are also planning to record some of the speeches at EMMRC before a selected gathering,” he said.

Jadhav refused to divulge any further details but he said that the University of Pune was planning to tie up with Lalit Kaladarsha, an old Marathi theatre company for the records.

Jadhav also said that the University of Pune would be launching 18 short-term programmes for college students. “We have designed courses like mobile repairing and beautician. The idea is to motivate students to seek self-employment. We are also planning to involve high-school drop outs in the programme,” he said.

The University will cooperate with Janshikshan Samsthas of Ministry of HRD and will launch programmes on September 8. Initially, the courses of two to four months duration will be started in 48 colleges. The University of Pune is also planning to start IT education for the faculty and non-teaching staff. “There will be three courses foundation, intermediate and advance which will enable the learners to form an idea about Information Technology. To start with 1,000 faculty members will be trained.