Data Mining Analysis of the Rural Public Library usages in Periyakulam Municipality

After Independence, due to various efforts in universalization of elementary education, India has experienced growing population of literate and educated citizens. For facilitating these educated citizens with the adequate documentary and knowledge resources, government has established many rural public libraries. These public libraries are the catalysts that strengthen and unite these rural villages. They have been a familiar feature of the rural Indian cultural and community landscape for over 60 years and perform a valuable community service, democratising access to reading information and learning and act as a ‘shop window’ for local authority services. They provide a focal point for community and inter-generational contact, and enable access to learning and an ever-expanding range of information for a wide constituency through an increasingly broad and varied range of media. These rural public libraries have always catered for children and families, as well as for individual readers of all ages. Our case study on the usages of the rural public libraries by the people of Periyakulam municipality, focused on these individual reader’s interest in accessing books from the public libraries of Periyakulam, a small town cum a century old Municipality of Theni district, a southern district of Tamilnadu, India. The researchers have collected data by questioners and interview methods and analysed it using the Apriori algorithm of Data mining techniques. Association rules were used to analyse the item set and results were obtained. The result expressed the public’s interest in reading and selecting books from the public library and the libraries’ involvement in the life of the people.