1 History of Academic Libraries in India

Trishanjit Kaur

 

INTRODUCTION

 

To understand the present it is very important to know the past. Writing about the history of academic libraries is an arduous task as this has not been a very favourite area of research for library and information professionals. Only a few experts have written about this significant area of research as it involves a lot of literature search. For the purpose of scientific writing of history of libraries the understanding the nature of existing source material and knowing the art of using it is essential. The sources for writing the history are available in Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Arabic, Persian and European Languages and most of them have been translated into English. These records exist in various formats, such as manuscripts, inscriptions, copper plates etc. They are either original or foreign. The contribution of foreign travelogues such as Tibetan, Chinese, Muslim, Portuguese, English and other Europeans is highly useful. Some noteworthy foreign travelogues who have given details about those times are Itsing, Fahien, Hieun Tsang, Aliberuni, Ibn Batuta, Minhaj, Firishta, Badauni, Afif, Bernier, Mandelso, Manrique de Lara, Martin, Count Noer. In addition to the contribution of the travelogues, the contribution of historians like Henry M. Eliot, John Dawson, Stanley Lane-Pool, Ishwari Prasad, C. Majumdar, Jadunath Sarkar, V.D. Mahajan, Mohammed Muhammed Zubair, J.S. Sarma, N.N. Law etc. In addition, though scanty but there are articles written by the library professionals on history of libraries.

 

Eastern and Central India

 

Taxila University, which is oldest in the world, has been in existence since even before the time of the Buddha during 414 A.D. in the city of Gandhara in north-west India (now in Pakistan). It had an enrollment of 500 students, including princes and a few foreign students. The University had an excellent library that included works on Hinduism, political science, literature, medicine and philosophy, etc.

Taxila University

 

Another ancient seat of learning about 55 miles south-east of Patna was the Nalanda university; its name is derived from a Sanskrit term for “giver of knowledge.” It grew to be the foremost Buddhist monastery and an educational centre. Most of what is known of the Nalanda University during the 6th and the 7th centuries A.D. is due to the accounts left by Hiuen-tsang. He lived in the institution for three years in the first half of the 7th century, and I-tsing who also stayed there for ten years towards the latter part of the same century. The teaching was carried on in hundreds of lectures to large and small groups or classes, from morning till sunset. The Seminar system of questions and discussions was adopted by the teachers. The courses of study offered by Nalanda University covered a wide range of subjects, almost the entire circle of knowledge then available. They were drawn from different fields of learning, Brahmanical and Buddhist, sacred and secular, philosophical and practical, science and arts etc. However, great emphasis at Nalanda was given to Mahayana learning (the Great Vehicle), along with the study of 18 sects, the Vedas and other books, the Hetuvidya, Sabdavidya, the Chikitsavidya, the words on Magic or Atharvaveda, the Samkhya, and the Sanskrit Grammar etc. After the study was over, the award ceremony was solemnized and degrees were awarded to students, taking into account their merit and social status.

 

Information on the Nalanda University Library is also found in the Tibetan accounts, from which it is understood that the library was situated in a special area known by the poetical name the Dharmaganja, (Piety Mart) which comprised three huge buildings, called the Ratnasagara, the Ratnodadhi and the Ratnaranjaka of which the Ratnasagara was a nine-storied building and housed the collection of manuscripts and rare sacred works like Prajnaparamita Sutra etc. The library at Nalanda had a rich stock of manuscripts on philosophy and religion and contained texts relating to grammar, logic, literature, the Vedas, the Vedanta, and the Samkhya philosophy, the Dharmasastras, the Puranas, Astronomy, Astrology and Medicine. The University of Nalanda specialized in Mahayana and its library flourished down to the 12th century A.D. until Bakhtiyar Khalji sacked it in 1197-1203 A.D. and set fire to the establishment of Nalanda.

 

 

The Sunday Express of 23rd February 2014 carried an interesting article, “A University under a mound” by Santosh Singh. Recent excavations have shown the site of a university a few kilometers away from the ruins of Nalanda in a place called Telhara about which Hiuen Tsang is said to have mentioned. The Telhara project that started on December 26, 2009 has so far come across over 1,000 priceless finds from 30 odd trenches…It is said the mahavihara or university was built by one of the descendents of Magadha ruler Bimbisara. The excavation has so far revealed 11 cells of 4 square metres each. It is believed they were faculty quarters. There is evidence from the Gupta and Pala periods.

 

King Dharampala founded the Vikramshila monastery which was about 24 miles to the east of Bhagalpur, Bihar. There were 3000 scholars residing in at Vikramasila, and there was a impressive library attached to it. Like Nalanda its library was also destroyed by the Moslems under Bakhtiyar Khilji who mistook it for a fort. Odantapuri university was a victim of Khilji’s fury. This university served as a model of first Tibetan monastery which was built in 749 A.D. Later Turko-Afgans raised a fortress on the site of the university. The University of Somapuri near Paharpur in North Bengal occupied a position like Vikramshila since the days of Dharampala (769-827 A.D.). This university had its own library with a rich collection of Tibetan translations. But in the middle of 11th century A.D. this university too became a victim of fire. It was later renovated by a monk, but it could not regain its lost fame. The last of the famous seats of learning in eastern India was Navadwipa in the West Bengal. It reached its height of glory from A.D. 1063 to 1106 as a centre of intellectual excellence as well as its rich library facilities. However, this library too was destroyed along with the centre by Bakhtiyar Khilji.

 

Western and South India

 

The Vallabhi University was famous for its Hinayana courses of studies and it had a well-equipped library. All these universities possessed rich libraries (Pustaka-bhandaras) and in the hall containing such books there used to be an image of the goddess Saraswati with a book in her hand. In south India at Amaravati, the Nagarjuna Vidyapeeth flourished about the 7th century A.D. its library housed in the top floor of the five-storied building of the university. It had an enormous collection on the Buddhist philosophy, particularly of the Mahayana school that Nagarjuna had founded, science and medicine. There is enough archaeological evidence that supports the existence of this 7th century university and its library. It had collections on Botany, Geography, Mineralogy and Medicine. It was a great attraction for scholars from the different parts of India and from countries like, China, Burma and Ceylon.

 

One pattern that emerges from the historical accounts of various travelers is that higher education was at its best in different parts of India especially in eastern parts. These universities and their libraries were destroyed by Muslim rulers.

 

University Libraries in Medieval India

 

The existence of academic libraries during the medieval period of Indian history is not known, though the Muslim rulers did support libraries in their own palaces. A lone exception, however, was a library attached to a college at Bidar, having a collection of 3000 books on different subjects. Aurangzeb got this Library transferred to Delhi to merge it with his palace library. During the medieval period, due to Muslim invasions and political troubles, the powerful empires and kingdoms of Indian rulers fell one by one. This affected higher education and the development of academic libraries as well.

 

LIBRARIES IN MODERN INDIA (1757-1947)

 

During the British rule in India, a number of academic institutions were established by the East India Company, and by the Christian missionaries. Some worth mentioning events which led to the growth and development of higher education in India during this period were the establishment of the Calcutta College in 1781, Jonathan Duncan, then British agent, founded the Benaras Sanskrit College in 1792. The Calcutta Fort William College was founded in 1800. All these colleges had their own libraries. During this period, particularly in the context of academic libraries, the important landmarks are (i) the Charter Act of 1813, (ii) the foundation of Fort William and Serampore Colleges (iii) establishment of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay universities and their libraries, and (iv) Hunter, Raleigh and Calcutta University Commissions library training programmes, the establishment of Inter University Board.

 

The Fort William College was founded in Calcutta on 18th August 1800 by the Marquis of Welleselay, the Governor-General of India during 1798-1805. Reverend David Brown, Provost of the college was instrumental in setting up the library which had a well rounded collection of Eastern manuscripts. In the absence of adequate financial support, the library could not survive for longer period and in 1835 it was decided to close the library and its valuable collection was transferred to the Asiatic Society Library in Calcutta between 1835-39.The Charter Act of 1813 passed by the British Parliament gave to the East India Company complete responsibility for educating Indians. The establishment of C.M.S. College in Kottayam, Hindu (Presidency) college in Calcutta in 1816 and Raven Shaw College in Cuttack in 1816 was the immediate result of the Charter Act 1813. Serampore College during this period was founded by the Danes in 1818 and the King of Denmark in 1927 agreed to give this college an academic status by providing equivalence to the Danish Universities with power to confer degrees. The library of this college too was established along with its foundation and at a later stage the college was given affiliation to the University of Burdwan for the purpose of conferring degrees. The 7th March 1835 decision of the British Indian Government to promote English literature and sciences in India resulted into the spread of number of colleges in India and by 1839 there were over forty colleges with attached libraries in the British territory in India. In 1840 Presidency College was founded in Madras, followed by a medical college in Bombay in 1845.

 

The Charles Wood dispatch of 1854 popularly known as the ‘Magna Carta of English Education’ in India also paved the way for the establishment of the universities in the presidency towns. Sir John Colville introduced the Bill to establish universities in India and it was passed by the Governor General of India Lord Dalhousie on 24th January 1857. This decision paved the way for the foundation of three universities based on the London Universities Model in the Presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.

 

Important Commissions and Committees before Independence

 

Indian Education Commission, popularly known as Hunter Commission was appointed by the British Indian Government in 1882 to study the progress of education under the new policy adopted in 1854 by the East India Company and transferred to the Crown and accepted by the Secretary of State in 1859. Sir William W. Hunter in his report had clearly stated that the conditions of the libraries was in a very poor state and declared them “hardly creditable.” The Commission paid special attention to the colleges and their libraries and other facilities. The direct result of the Commission was the establishment of Panjab University, Lahore (now in Pakistan), and Allahabad University in 1882 and 1887 respectively but still the condition of the education and libraries remained in poor state of art. The Raleigh Commission 1902 appointed by Lord Curzon to investigate the conditions and prospects of the Indian universities and to recommend measures to improve their constitution and working and standards of teaching also paid special attention to the academic libraries and found that, “the library is little used by graduates and hardly at all by other students.” Further, the Commission commented, “In a college where library is inadequate or ill arranged, the students have no opportunity of forming the habit of independent and Intelligent reading.” Thus, the Commission specifically recommended that reference services must be made an integral part of all libraries in colleges and universities, and that one of the pre-requisite conditions for the grant of university affiliation to a college be the accessibility of students to the library of the institution. The recommendations of the Raleigh Commission were included in the Universities Act of 1904 and provided the power to all universities to require that all colleges applying for affiliation maintain proper libraries, equipment, library building, and lend books to all students but the situation and the status of libraries could not be improved much simply because the recommendations made by the Commission and the provisions made in the act could not be implemented properly.

 

The Calcutta University Commission popularly known as Sadler Commission was appointed by the government in 1917 to study the situation and the status of education in the country and to make recommendations to solve the existing problems. It was observed that “one of the greatest weaknesses of the existing system is the extraordinarily unimportant part which is played by the library” and found that “in some colleges the library is regarded not as an essential part of teaching equipment but merely as a more or less useless conventional accessory.” The Commission made the recommendations regarding the libraries that college libraries be strengthened and that training should be given to the students and occasionally to the teachers about use of the library. An immediate result of the Calcutta University Commission was the establishment of a few new teaching-cum-residential universities at Patna in 1917, Osmania in Hyderabad in 1918, Dacca (now in Bangladesh), Aligarh, and Lucknow in 1921, Delhi in 1922 and Nagpur in 1923 and all of them were established along with the establishment of libraries as an integral part of the university system.

 

Though higher education and academic libraries made some progress during the first quarter of the present century, yet their growth and development was not very well organized. Academic institutions and their growth after 1916 created a few problems also and the general feeling was that the “quality of Education was being sacrificed for quantity.” While such a situation prevailed, the Indian Statutory Commission, popularly known as the Simon Commission, was appointed by the Government in 1927 to study the conditions prevailing in India. The Simon Commission appointed an Auxiliary Committee to look into the growth of education in India.

 

Sir Philip Hartog, a former member of the Calcutta University Commission (1917-1919), and a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dacca, was appointed its Chairman. In its report, submitted in 1929, the Committee stated that “the dispersal of resources for university teaching among a number of colleges had made it difficult to build up university libraries of the type required for advanced work both at the Honors and the research stage [therefore] majority of the university libraries were inadequate and all needed great additions.”

 

There were only 12 universities in India in 1924 which were swelled to 18 by the time India got freedom in 1947. In fact, the academic libraries during the British rule had no significance in the academic life of the institutions of higher education and the pivotal role that can be played by the academic libraries in the life of the institutions could very well be seen in the policy statement of higher education of the free India and the fact was also proven when at the time of national reconstruction, the importance of libraries in teaching and research was recognized, and libraries received the early attention of the Government of India.

 

Academic Libraries in India after Independence

 

The actual process for the development of the university libraries in India can be said to have been set in motion with the appointment of the University Education Commission presided over by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (1948-49) which gave valuable recommendations. The Commission in course of its study of the academic libraries found that “libraries were hopelessly inadequate to serve the curricular needs of a modern university. They were ill housed, ill-stocked, and ill-staffed and were totally lacking in standard literary and scientific journals. Service was in the hands of personnel that had hardly any notion of the objectives of university education. The annual appropriation for book purchase seldom exceeded the ten thousand mark.” In addition, the annual grant for these libraries was not sufficient. Therefore, the Commission recommended that at least 6% of the total budget of each academic institution should be set aside for the library. Only then will the condition of these libraries will improve. It added that if institutions were not willing to allocate 6% of their budget to libraries, they should spend Rs.40 per student enrolled. The Commission also suggested that more attention should be paid to improve the reference services in the university libraries. The growth of university libraries since Independence can be seen in respect of the initiatives taken by the Central Government considering the vital importance of higher education and role of libraries in the educational development, commitment to fulfill the demand of higher education, and the foundation of the UGC in 1953 by an Act of Parliament. The Ranganathan Committee, appointed by the UGC in 1957, made some outstanding recommendations, which included standards for library building, collection development, staff and services and furniture etc. The Kothari Commission also made valuable recommendations for this purpose, but the role of the University Grants Commission deserves special mention, because it has played a vital role by “regularly providing appropriate grants and funds to all universities for development of libraries, to purchase books and journals . . . ., construction of new library buildings and for library equipment and furniture.”

 

The growth has been slow and steady with the present number of universities at about 650. But it is not just the number that matters but quality too, which needs a lot of attention especially now with the dominance of information communication technologies.

 

Library networks and development of consortia

 

With the advent and application of computers, the nature, functioning and services of libraries have changed in a dramatic way. Computers are being used in libraries to process, store, retrieve and disseminate information. This has redefined the concept of library from a house of books to a place to access most advanced media including CD-ROM, the Internet and other electronic formats of information resources. Today libraries are witnessing the network based era having connected to vast ocean of the Internet based information. The use of ICTs have placed the Indian academic libraries at par with the libraries the world over.

 

The Information for Library Network (INFLIBNET) set up by the UGC as an autonomous inter- university centre in 1991 proved to be a landmark to interlink the academic libraries. It is involved in modernizing university libraries in India and connects these to a nation-wide-high speed data network. The INFLIBNET promotes automation of libraries, develop standards; creates union catalogues of serials, theses, books, monographs and non-book materials; provide access to bibliographic information resources; creates database of projects, institutions, specialists; organizes training programmes, etc. Almost all academic libraries, especially university libraries are members of INFLIBNET. The centre also developed ‘Software for University Libraries’, a library automation software more popularly called as SOUL. In addition to INFLIBNET, several other national networks and library networks have evolved. The National Informatic Centre’s Network (NICNET), INDONET, ERNET, CALIBNET, DELNET, MALIBNET, etc. are notable. These networks boosted the resource sharing and widened the spheres of access to information for users.

 

The rising costs of journals, devaluation of Indian currency and financial crunches being faced by libraries paved way for development of consortia. The consortia are usually intended to meet the information needs of stakeholders in a homogenous group. The consortium approach began in India in 1982 with emergence of the Forum for Resource Sharing in Astronomy and Astrophysics (FORSA). This was initiated for sharing resources available in astronomy libraries in the nation. However, its membership was extended to physics and mathematics libraries in 2004, having common interests to carry forward the aims and activities of FORSA. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India set up the Indian Digital Library in Engineering Science and Technology (INDEST) to provide access to e-resources to all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and other institutions including NITs, ISM, IIMs, NITTTRs, etc. The INDEST headquarter is at IIT Delhi. The National Knowledge Resource Consortium (NKRC) was established in 2009. It is a network of libraries and information centres of 39 National Laboratories and institutes of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and 24 institutes of the Department of Science and Technology. The Health Science Library and Information Network (HELINET) was launched during March 2003 with an aim to improve the quality of education and research in institutions of health sciences in Karnataka through enhanced access to high quality medical information. The consortium facilitates access from leading publishers to 600 scholarly, international biomedical journals to members/institutions. The Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA) provides access to 3000+ journals in the broad spectrum of agricultural sciences to agricultural universities, veterinary universities and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutions.

 

The UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium was launched by his Excellency the then President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam at Vidya Bhawan on 28th December 2003 on the concluding day of Golden Jublee celebrations of the UGC. The consortium facilitates current as well as archival access to more than 7,500 core and peer-reviewed electronic journals and 10 bibliographic databases from world famous publishers, scholarly societies and aggregators. The consortium was implemented in a phased manner. In the first phase, access to e-resources was offered to 50 universities having the Internet connectivity under the UGC-INFONET networking program. Thereafter, the consortium access was extended to 209 universities under the purview of UGC. The consortium provides access to e-resources in almost all disciplines including arts, humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, chemical sciences, life sciences, computer sciences, management, mathematics and statistics.

 

National Knowledge Commission

 

The National Knowledge Commission (NKC), first of its kind in the world was set up by the Government of India on 13th June 2005 with a time-frame of three years, from 2nd October 2005 to 2nd October 2008. As a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, the National Knowledge Commission has been given a mandate to guide policy and direct reforms, focusing on certain key areas such as education, science and technology, agriculture, industry, e-governance etc. Easy access to knowledge, creation and preservation of knowledge systems, dissemination of knowledge and better knowledge services are core concerns of the commission. The Commission envisaged the future road map for the growth and development of academic libraries by imbibing core issues such as, set up a national commission on libraries, prepare a national census of all libraries, revamp LIS education, training and research facilities, re-assess staffing of libraries, set up a central library fund, modernize library management, encourage greater community participation in library management, promote information communication technology applications in all libraries, facilitate donation and maintenance of private collections, and encourage public private partnerships in LIS development, etc.

 

The most important recommendation of NKC regarding university libraries is that by 2015 the number of universities should be 1500 to cater to the needs of the youth. This, it is believed, would enable India to attain a gross enrolment ratio of at least 15 per cent by 2015. Increase in access to higher education does require an expansion in the number of universities and colleges but the question is: do we need 1,500 universities? The recommended number is not based on any detailed analysis. No clear rationale is provided. (Tilak, 2007). Is it just about numbers or the focus of policy makers and planners should be more on the quality and affordability of higher education. Private players are making it a business.

 

If we look back and from Taxila till now, the university libraries have come a long way. There has been growth and development in every sphere and access to reading material has increased many folds. University library is still a centre of learning and research for its users.

 

Reading List

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