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Unit 9: National Libraries

agencies and governments are deposited in the National Library, according to agreements Notes
made with the Government of India.

American Government documents
British Government documents (against purchase)
Canadian Government documents
European Economic Community and other colonial Government publications.

Processing

The library’s cataloguing system follows the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR-2), the
Rules for Descriptive Cataloguing of the Library of Congress, for uniformity and consistency in
subject headings; the Subject Headings used in the Dictionary Catalogue of the Library of
Congress, 8th edition is followed.
The books are classified according to the Dewey Decimal Classification (DTC). The four editions
of DDC i.e. 16th to 19th have been used for this purpose.

The library catalogue is both in the card and printed forms. The card catalogue is in the dictionary
form for English language publications, arranged in two sequences, author and subject.

Did u know? The printed catalogue of the library is available in 10 volumes which is
the alphabetical author catalogue, covering authors’ names beginning with the letters A
and S.

Reader’s Services

The National Library extends its services through its various reading rooms, lending section,
bibliography and reference divisions. Presently, the following services are offered:
Lending Services: A peculiar feature of the National Library of India is that, except for rare
books, gift collections, generally out-of-print publications, government and UN documents
and serials, all other books are lent out for home reading. This function is rather peculiar
to a National Library, as most National Libraries are for reference only and seldom offer
lending services to individual users. However, for historical reasons, the National Library,
of India, has continued its lending facilities to the members of the library in and out of
Calcutta. On an average 250 books are issued every day.
Inter library loan service is offered to members and institutions with the cooperation of
other libraries, both at the national and international levels. This service obtains loan of
books from Russian State Library, Moscow, the British Library, U.K., and libraries in
Australia, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden and a few other countries.
Reading Rooms: Apart from its main reading room which accommodates 320 readers at a
time, the National Library maintains ten reading rooms for using different specialised
materials. The main reading room stocks a very selective and open shelf collection of
about 10,000 volumes of general reference books and books for basic study and reference
on specific fields of knowledge.
Bibliography and Reference Service: The Bibliography Division of the National Library
was established in 1951 with an aim to function as an active agent to disseminate knowledge
and information in an organised and effective manner. This service is offered in response
to requests from scholars, researchers and writers for a bibliography on a specific topic,

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