On this day, in the year 1836, Calcutta National Library was founded, but it was then Calcutta Public Library. On 30th January, 1903 it was named Calcutta Imperial Library and in independent India, it became National Library on 1 February, 1953.
The Imperial Library was formed in 1891 by combining several secretariat libraries especially of the then Home Department. In the year 1910, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee was appointed as president of the Imperial Library Council and he donated his personal collection of 80,000 books to the library by arranging a separate section.
After independence, the government of India announced it as the National Library of India in the year 1953.
At present, there are 86,000 maps and 3,200 manuscripts in the library. Moreover, all the magazines and periodicals published in India in about 15 languages are regularly kept in this library.
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