It might be one of the oldest libraries in the country and a repository for rare and old books and documents. And yet, the over a century old National Library in Kolkata is unable to take good care of rare letters and manuscripts written by such luminaries as Rabindranath Tagore, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sarojini Naidu, Sarat Chandra Bose and Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) discovered during an audit of this library that for these rare manuscripts and letters as well as the world’s smallest dictionary “no register or catalogue for these items was available”. In this context, it noted that in the “Absence of an accession register and complete documentation regarding movement of priceless rare books exposed them to loss and theft.”
In its report tabled in Parliament recently, CAG has called upon the “Rare Books” division of this library under which these collections come to “open an accession register and properly document all rare collections to avoid possible loss and theft due to non-accessioning”.
The CAG has also found the library wanting on the digitisation front. As it found out, in the decade since the digitisation of works published prior to 1900 began, the library has been able to so for less than 10,000 books. “The number of old, rare and brittle books that needed digitisation on priority had not been quantified, and only a relatively small number of books — 9,141 in all — could be digitised in a decade’s time,” says the CAG report.
The library which comes under the Union ministry of culture was founded in 1891 as the Imperial Library. It was renamed the National Library in 1948 following India’s Independence.
It is legally entitled to receive a free copy from the publisher of every Indian publication within a month of its publication. And yet, this library has been able to receive just between five to 26 per cent of the books published in the country owing to “poor enforcement” of the Books and Newspapers (Public Libraries) Act, 1954 under which the national Library has the right to acquire publications. So what could have been a treasure trove for scholars isn’t really so thanks to the library’s tardy functioning.
Another problem plagues the National Library. Owing to inordinate delays in the processing of books received from publishers, library users were being denied access to nearly three lakh books.