KARACHI University gets a lot of negative attention in the media these days.

Of course, there are clashes between political parties and lack of shuttles and a whole myriad of other issues that it needs to do away with.

However, amidst all the problems, certain things in the university have still given the students a reason to gloat and feel proud of, and they are worth shedding light on.

One of them is the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences, an academic research establishment situated inside the university. This institution offers several excellent facilities to students of the university, one of which is the Latif Ebrahim Jamal Science Information Centre.

Its digital library offers full access to the world’s largest library resources. This includes over 30,000 full-text journals of sciences from all over the world. It is also connected with all major universities of Pakistan through Pakistan Educational Research Network (PERN), and also provides access to offline databases.

The membership to this digital library is free for all students and faculty members, and even to outsiders. There are 188 computers for simultaneous use, and there is free of charge access to laser printers and high resolution scanners.

This is a great opportunity for students of the university, and the only reason that not more students are taking advantage of it is that nobody knows about it.

One problem with Karachi University is that despite having quite a few useful facilities, the administration takes no steps to actually inform students about them. It seems as if they themselves want to do nothing to better the university’s reputation.

This leaves students to find things out through word-of-mouth alone. The administration should try to spread awareness about the excellent facilities available in the university so that a maximum number of students can benefit from them.

NUDRAT KAMAL Karachi