Finding the right book in a library filled with hundreds of titles can be a time-consuming exercise. At Motithang Higher Secondary School, two Class XII students have decided to make that search a little easier—with a digital solution of their own.
Tshering Tobgay, a commerce student, and Pravakar Chhetri, a science student, have developed an e-library system that allows students to search for books and reserve them online before heading to the library.
The system was launched during the school’s symposium to loud applause from fellow students, marking the culmination of nearly seven months of work by the two friends, who have known each other since Class VI.
Accessible through the school’s website, the platform allows students to log in using their library ID and search the library catalogue. If a book is available, they can reserve it online. The system then generates a reservation ID, which must be presented at the library when collecting the book.
The idea emerged from a problem the two students encountered themselves.
“My friend and I were looking for some books, and we wanted to know whether they were available in our school library. That’s when we realised that we didn’t have any platform where we could look up the books,” Pravakar said. “Many other institutions have similar platforms, but our school didn’t have one. So, that’s how we came up with the idea.”
What began as a simple inconvenience eventually became a months-long coding project.
The two students developed the system on their own, drawing on JavaScript lessons taught at school and knowledge they had acquired independently. For Pravakar, however, an interest in programming had begun much earlier.
“I was interested in coding and programming at a very young age. When lockdown happened in 2020, I got enough time to learn,” he said. “I went to YouTube, and I asked my cousins who are abroad to buy me courses. That’s how I learned the basics, and that’s how I developed my journey in coding.”
Building the platform was not without difficulties. One of the biggest challenges was something many young technology enthusiasts in Bhutan continue to grapple with—reliable access to the internet.
“The main problem that we faced was the internet,” Tshering said. “We had to go to our friend’s house, or we had to come to school and stay late just so we could work on our website.”
Those late hours have now resulted in a system that could significantly simplify how students use the school library.
According to school librarian Sherab Wangchuk, the library had previously relied on more cumbersome methods of managing book-related information.
“Before, we used to have a form-based system. Every class had library periods, and each student would receive a form to fill out,” he said. “Later, we switched to Excel, but because there were so many students using it, the system would become slow.”
The new platform, he said, is directly linked to Google Sheets, making it faster and more efficient as long as an internet connection is available.
Beyond making it easier to locate and reserve books, the project demonstrates how lessons taught inside a classroom can be transformed into solutions for everyday problems.
For Tshering and Pravakar, the e-library may be only their first step into the world of technology and innovation. For their school, however, the project has already brought a practical change—one conceived, designed and built by its own students.
And as Bhutan places increasing emphasis on technology and digital transformation, initiatives such as theirs show how some of that change can begin at the most local level: with two students, a problem waiting to be solved, and the skills to build a solution.
