National Library of India

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The Calcutta Public Library began its journey on 21st March 1836. The Library was established for reference and lending, open to all, irrespective of class, colour& nationalities, on the self-financing principle.	Calcutta Public Library at house of F.B. Strong
The Calcutta Public Library was subsequently merged with the Imperial Library and combining the collection of a number of secretariat libraries, the Imperial Library was opened to the public in January in 1903.	Imperial Library at Metcalfe Hall
After Independence of India, the National Library came into being in place of Imperial Library by the “Imperial Library (Change of Name) Act” in 1948. It was accorded a special status of an institution of national importance in the Article 62 in the 7th Schedule of the Union list of the Constitution of India and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the then Union Minister of Education opened the Library to Public on 1st February 1953.	Belvedere Estate, now declared as Heritage Building

Besides reading, reference and bibliographic services, books are lent out against security deposit.
While inter library loan is extended, the Library acts as a Centre for International loan.
Readers’ Awareness Programme, Electronic catalogue service, Document delivery service, Bibliographic service, Reference service.
Electronic document delivery service, E-directory for e-journals
Microfilm / microfiche reading facilities are provided in the Library.
Photocopying service from publications in the stock of the Library is provided on payment
Consultancy & training services are provided to libraries and librarians.
Internet use is allowed to all members during library hours.
The Library serve its readers 362 days of the year. It is closed on national holidays.

25,000 digitized books/documents of National Library
7000 academic and research journals of different disciplines from the major international publishers
The library has products like Jstor, Project Muse and Hein Online.
Other online reference collections include:
- Oxford Bibliographies Online
- Oxford English Dictionary of OUP
- Cambridge Companion Online Complete Collection,
- Shakespeare Survey Online
- Cambridge Histories Online, Orlando: Women’s Writing of CUP,
- Scopus of Elsevier and Assess Science of McGraw Hill
The library procured two mammoth e-book archives:
- Early English Books Online (EEBO) containing 125000 digitized books published between 1475 to 1700 from ProQuest
- Eighteenth Century Collection Online containing 80,000 digitized books from Gale.
2.7 million full texts dissertation and thesis with 7000 added each year from 700 leading academic institutions
More than 10,000 titles of e-books covering all branches of knowledge