Bookless in Bhutan

Looking for IT books in Thimphu bookstores? Look no further. There are none. A few days ago we scouted the main bookshops in town in search of general books and textbooks on computer literacy, Internet, IT, programming, Microsoft Office, etc. Nothing fancy, nothing specific. We checked out DSB, Megha, Pekhang and a few others. To my shear amazement we found none (aside from a small local booklet on Javascript for class 11-12 students).


There were lots of textbooks on management, accounting, and even on... biostatistics! But none of the incredibly-popular "For Dummies" self-learning basic IT books. Several of the shopkeepers mentioned that there is no demand.

Why is demand non-existent? Do Bhutanese techies use only online resources? Do they get them from the IT-book-galore-shops in India? With the growing emphasis on the potential of ICT education in the country (e.g., the Chiphen Rigpel project), it is crucial to have well-stocked shops and libraries with IT books. In India it is the norm: Computers and Internet is the first category in Books on Flipkart.com, a large Indian online retailer. The same is true in the US: Amazon.com has plenty of items under its Computers and Technology Books category.