Libraries@17000ft is part of 17000ft’s core initiatives towards improving education in each and every school in rural Ladakh, by building a reading culture and an environment of discovery and learning. The Library Program aims to make every child in every government school a member of any library and bring in methodologies to ensure that they have opportunities to read and gain exposure.

The idea is to direct children to read age appropriate books and motivate them to read higher level books as they get more comfortable with the activity

17000 ft sets up libraries with colourful, engaging, age appropriate books, in English and Hindi, as well as local languages- Urdu and Ladakhi- largely from domestic publishers. Books are chosen keeping in mind the reading abilities of the children, and emphasis is laid on picture books, locally relevant content and also books which provide exposure to the outside world. 

17000 ft libraries consist not only of easy reads and fiction books, but also have reference books, subject exposure books, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, atlases etc., to aid children in their academic curriculum. Books are labelled and also colour coded based on the “GROWBY” Reading Level system developed by Hippocampus Reading Foundation. ‘G’ – Green, ‘R’ – Red, ‘O’ – Orange, ‘W’ – White, ‘B’ – Blue and ‘Y’ – Yellow.