Tamil Nadu has suspended five library officials over the procurement of books allegedly containing fabricated authorship, invalid ISBNs, artificial intelligence-generated misinformation and inflated prices for the Periyar Arivulagam Library in Coimbatore, school education minister A Rajmohan announced on Sunday.
The suspended officials are S Kamatchi, chief librarian of the Anna Centenary Library in Chennai; Dinesh Kumar, chief librarian and information officer in-charge of the Kalaignar Centenary Library in Madurai; V Santhanakrishnan, librarian and information officer at the Madurai library and in-charge of the Periyar Arivulagam Library; S Santhana Karthikeyan, librarian and information officer at the Anna Centenary Library; and J Juliet, chief accounts officer at the Directorate of Public Libraries.
According to the minister, the alleged irregularities occurred during the previous DMK regime. The action follows concerns raised about books purchased for the Coimbatore library, including a collection identified in its fourth-floor Tamil section by writer Perumal Murugan.
The books, reportedly supplied by Agal Vilakku Pathippagam, were alleged to contain AI-generated misinformation, fictitious author names and invalid International Standard Book Numbers. The titles also reportedly carried prices that were significantly higher than expected, prompting writers and researchers to examine whether similar problems existed in other parts of the collection.
Researchers have also questioned the quality and authenticity of some English-language books held by the libraries. S Satheesh Kumar, who examined the collection, reportedly identified more than 200 titles from 3GE Learning Publications with allegedly fake ISBNs. The books were priced between Rs 6,000 and Rs 9,900 and included publisher website details and author credentials that researchers described as dubious.
In one case cited in the report, a book on electronics and instrumentation listed a Pakistani woman as its editor. When contacted, she reportedly said that she was an environmental scientist. Kumar also found books that allegedly contained more than 60% plagiarised content and apparently fabricated authors.
The allegations place procurement and catalogue verification at the centre of the dispute. Public libraries depend on institutional checks to establish whether a book has a valid publisher, a traceable author, an authentic ISBN and a price that reflects its content and market value. When those checks fail, the immediate concern extends beyond the individual titles because public money is used to build collections intended for students, researchers and general readers.
The suspensions involve officials across major state library institutions and the Directorate of Public Libraries. The government’s announcement does not, in the supplied report, specify the value of the purchases, the total number of affected books, or the next stage of the inquiry. It also does not establish whether the alleged defects were present in every title supplied by the publishers mentioned.
The reported action follows the identification of nearly 1,800 books from Agal Vilakku Pathippagam in the Tamil section of the Periyar Arivulagam Library. Further findings concerning English-language titles indicate that the review may extend beyond a single publisher or language collection. The government’s subsequent investigation and any formal findings will determine the extent of the alleged procurement irregularities and the administrative responsibility involved.
