The National Library of India is a library located in the Belvedere Estate,

Alipore Alipore is a neighbourhood of Kolkata, South Kolkata in Kolkata district in the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It is flanked by the Tolly Nullah to the north, Bhowanipore to the east, the Diamond Harbour R ...

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, India. It is India's largest library by volume and

public record Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government. Depending on jurisdiction, examples of public records includes information pertaining to births, deat ...

. The National Library is under

Ministry of Culture Ministry of Culture may refer to: * Ministry of Tourism, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Sports (Albania) * Ministry of Culture (Algeria) * Ministry of Culture (Argentina) * Minister for the Arts (Australia) * Ministry of Culture (Azerbaijan)Ministry o ...

, Government of India. The library is designated to collect, disseminate and preserve printed material produced within India. With a collection in excess of 2.5 million books and records, it is the largest in the country.

The Imperial Library

The Imperial Library was formed in 1891 by combining a number of Secretariat libraries in Calcutta. Of those, the most important and interesting was the library of the

Home Department The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

, which contained many books formerly belonging to the library of East India College, Fort William and the library of the East India Board in London. But, the use of the library was restricted to the superior officers of the Government. Sir

Ashutosh Mukherjee Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (anglicised, originally Asutosh Mukhopadhyay, also anglicised to Asutosh Mookerjee) (29 June 1864 – 25 May 1924) was a Bengali mathematician, lawyer, jurist, judge, educator, and institution builder. A unique figure i ...

was appointed as the president of imperial library council (1910) to which he donated his personal collection of 80,000 books arranged in a separate section.

Declaring the Imperial Library as the National Library

Formal opening of the National Library on 1 February 1953

After independence the Government of India changed the name of the Imperial Library to the National Library by ''Imperial Library (Change of Name) Act, 1948'', and the collection was transferred from The Esplanade to the present Belvedere Estate. On 1 February 1953 the National Library was opened to the public by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The name of ''National Library'' was changed to ''National Library of India'' by section 18 of the ''National Library of India Act, 1976''. The library collects book, periodicals, and titles in virtually all the Indian languages while the special collections in the National Library of India house at least fifteen languages. The Hindi department has books that date back all the way to the nineteenth century and the first ever books printed in that language. The collections break down and consist of 86,000 maps and 3,200 manuscripts. National Library of India 02303

Discovery of hidden chamber

In 2010, the Ministry of Culture, the owner of the library, decided to get the library building restored by the

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexander ...

(ASI). While taking stock of the library building, the conservation engineers discovered a previously unknown room. The secret ground-floor room, about 1000 sq. ft. in size, seems to have no opening of any kind. The ASI archaeologists tried to search the first floor area (that forms the ceiling of the room) for a trap door, but found nothing. Since the building is of historical and cultural importance, ASI has decided to bore a hole through the wall instead of breaking it. There are speculations about the room being a punishment room used by

Warren Hastings Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first governor-gener ...

and other British officials, or a place to store treasure. In 2011, the researchers announced that the room was filled entirely with mud, probably in an effort to stabilise the building.

Visiting

The National Library is located on Belvedere Road in Alipore. It is open between 8.00 am and 8.00 pm on all working days and between 9.30 am and 6.00 pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Government of India holidays.

References

External links

National Library of India
{{Authority control

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Culture of Kolkata Libraries in Kolkata Buildings and structures in Kolkata Education in Kolkata Alipore Libraries established in 1836