National Library Of India In Kolkata

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The National Library of India in Kolkata is the country's largest library and has massive collections of 22,70,954 books that suffice book lovers of all tastes. Calcutta the erstwhile name of Kolkata, being the capital of the British Raj was the seat of scholarly learning. The city had a library at Fort William, British Secretariat Libraries and also several public libraries that were run with the help of donations. The National Library on Kolkata was the first public library of eastern India.

It was Lord Curzon who first conceived the idea of amalgamating the Calcutta Public Library and Secretariat Libraries of British East India Company and was renamed as Imperial Library. After the independence of India, the Government of India re-christened the Imperial Library as National Library. Presently, National Library is located at the colossal 30 acres of Belvedere Estate in Kolkata. The huge collection of books of various genres, magazines, periodicals, newspapers is divided into Indian and foreign books sections. In the Indian section you can access to books of all Indian languages ranging from Gujarathi, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil to Telugu. Valuable ancient manuscripts in Sanskit, Pali and Prakrit are also preserved here.

The foreign section has a wide variety of books of various languages like German Division, East Asian Division, Slavonic Division, West Asia, Roman Division and African Division. The Rare Book section of the library has pieces like monographs, manuscripts and microfilms. The library is also a passionate place of learning for Indologists as the library has the valuable collection of Indian officials from the era of British East India Company to the present.

The National library is the repository library of the United Nations. It receives all the UN publications, books and periodicals from the US government and other commonwealth nations free of cost. Archives of rare books are recorded in CDs as well. You may take a look at the objectives of the National Library of India in Kolkata.

• Collection and preservation of all significant publications of the nation excluding ephemera.
• Acquisition of printed materials concerning the country and the related visual records that are not available in India.
• Preservation of foreign documents essential for the country.
• Collecting general and specialized bibliographical document services.
• A referral center providing detailed and complete knowledge.

With more than 2,270,000 number of books, 86,000 number of maps, 3,200 manuscripts and reading room accommodation for more than 550 readers, the library is certainly the perfect place to nurture one's intellectual and enlighten the faculties of mind with the help of immense knowledge available here.