KFBL co-founder attends librarians’ gathering

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi 

(Pakistan News & Features Services)

One of the co-founders of the Karachi Festival of Books and Libraries (KFBL), Syed Khalid Mahmood, attended the gathering of library professionals hosted by Muhammad Younis Hashmi, a former chief librarian of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), held in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi, on January 3. 

Speaking briefly on the occasion, the KFBL co-founder, who is the Chairman of Jumbo Publishing, commended the efforts of Younis Hashmi, having relocated to Canada after having worked for more than four decades at PIA, in trying to unite the community of librarians living in Pakistan. 

He congratulated Professor Farheen Mahmood on her promotion as Senior Chief Librarian and others who have also been promoted to the next grade recently. 

The host, Younis Hashmi, who seems to be in the process of establishing a tradition of holding get-togethers whenever he returns to Karachi, expressed his gratitude to the guests for having made it to the event despite their professional, social and personal preoccupations. 

He informed the guests about his participation in the KFBL as a panellist and described the festival, staged at the Habitt City, a very successful one. 

His strong networking skills combined with the eagerness to keep the librarians in particular active socially resulted in a healthy turnout and it also brought together quite a few of his former departmental colleagues from PIA, many of whom were thrilled to see each other after considerably long time. 

Besides Syed Khalid Mahmood, the guests in the dinner party included Abdul Hamid, Hira Yaseen, Prof Farheen Mahmood, Syed Ghazanfar Abbas, Shamraiz Kayani, Aziz Khatri, Zahid Mirza, Anwar Hussain, Syed Muzaffar Ali Shah, Farzana Zafar and Ali Asghar Dars.