COIMBATORE: Right from his youth, Eezham Tamizhappan, 84, a retired revenue department officer, was passionate about collecting Tamil books. Though he started to work right after school, he studied Tamil in private and obtained ‘Pulavar’ degree followed by B Lit, MA and PhD, all in Tamil. Today, he has a collection of more than 5,000 rare and old Tamil books and he is on a mission to digitize and make them available free of cost to everyone.Tamizhappan says he had collected Tamil books from friends and acquaintances. In early 1980s, he launched Ulaga Tamil Noolaga Arakkattalai (World Tamil Library Trust) to collect and preserve Tamil books. “Many people have rare Tamil books in their homes, which they take out only during Saraswati Pooja. The books lie unused and are in the danger of being destroyed by silverfish. These books have to be preserved and made available to people,” he says.Tamizhappan says he realized the only way to take the rare and mostly out-of-print editions in his collection to people, was to digitize them and upload them in the internet. As he did not know computers, he says he asked people the way to go about with the process. “I got several suggestions. But I decided to go with the one which asked me to slice off the spine of the books and scan the loose pages, so that they would be clearly visible in the digital copies,” he says.With the help of a friend from Bengaluru, Tamizhappan scanned 5,000 books in his collection. It took them three years – from 2014 to 2017 – to scan the books.A native of Devakottai, Tamizhappan has lived in Chennai for his work. He says he has not made any place his permanent residence. There are 500 more books, older and rarer, in his collection and now he needs to digitize them, he says. “In February, following the promise of help from a friend in Coimbatore I came here. But it didn’t turn out as expected. So, I’m trying to connect with people to mobilize help,” he says.Some of the books in his collection are rare, century-old editions of classic Tamil literary works such as Devaram and Kantha Puranam and lesser known works such as ‘Kathiresan Peril Ananda Kalippu’.Tamizhappan, who has also authored several Tamil books, says he primarily needs people with computer knowledge to help him with the task. “I have all required equipment, computer and scammer, all I need is manpower,” he says. He adds people who have rare books in their homes could also lend them to him so that he could scan and digitize them. “I’m also working with the help of people to create a website and upload the already digitized books in it. If I get funds to expand my project, that is also welcome.”He says his ideal is build a library of all possible Tamil books published. Asked about its plausibility, he quips, “If man can land on moon, why can’t this be done.”