A century ago, some of India’s most recognised political leaders came together to organise library movements, believing that the knowledge and education acquired and facilitated through these institutions would help their fight against the British. This thought led to the formation of the Bengal Library Association in 1925.
Today, as the association headquartered in Kolkata turns 100, its members are gearing up to host a series of events to celebrate its centenary year – and reflecting on the neglect and administrative apathy that West Bengal’s oldest libraries have been experiencing for the last several years.
“We need to save our libraries,” says Dr Joydeep Chanda, general secretary of the Bengal Library Association, and librarian at Gurudas College in Kolkata. Chanda points out that the library movement has considerably weakened over the past 12 years and approximately 50 per cent of the libraries in the state are fully or partly closed.
Between 2010-2023, no recruitments were made for any library-related post in the state, says Chanda. As a result, till 2023, out of the 2,460 libraries in West Bengal, 1,200 were fully or partly closed – 800 fully and 400 partly, which means they open once or twice a week. After many requests to the state government, that was amended in 2024, leading to some recruitment, says Chanda. “But more recruitment is required for library-related posts,” he adds.
Siddiqullah Choudhury, state Minister for Mass Education and Library Services, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In 1924, the first All India Public Library Conference was held at Belgaon, now Belgaum in Karnataka, under the presidency of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das. At this conference, a resolution moved by Calcutta High Court lawyer and freedom fighter Sushil Kumar Ghosh from Bengal was adopted urging the formation of library associations in each province of India.
Subsequently, a meeting was held in Calcutta’s Albert Hall on December 20, 1925, presided by J A Chapman, the then librarian of Kolkata’s Imperial Library, now called the National Library. It was at this meeting that the Bengal Library Association, formerly known as All Bengal Library Association, was formed with Rabindranath Tagore as president and Ghosh as its first secretary – the second library association in India, after Andhra Pradesh.
“When libraries first started in Bengal in 1925, we did not have librarians. We got the first librarian training centre in the country as part of the Bengal Library Association in 1937. It is still continuing today,” says Tapas Kumar Mondal, who has worked as a district library officer in public libraries across West Bengal for 23 years. Retired, Mondal now devotes his time to the Bengal Library Association.
“The library movement is essentially one where we believe that we need libraries in civil society. After formal education is completed, where does one go to learn? So a public library is for someone who can come and learn anything they want to, from childhood till death, free of cost. That is why we call the public library the university for common people,” says Mondal.
Junik Sengupta is one such person. When he is not in class pursuing his MSc degree in Physics at Calcutta University, Sengupta says he can be found in a library. “There is nothing in comparison to a library for students like us who do not have much money. I learn better when I sit in a library,” he says.
In the neighbourhood where Sengupta grew up in Kolkata, the Dhakuria Public Library established in 1904 served as a space for the community to learn. Earlier, many would sit and study there, but these days, only five or six people are seen on any given day.
“Our staff strength has reduced so we are not able to give the kind of service that we want. When recruitment was restarted in 2024 by the West Bengal government, 738 posts were filled for librarian jobs across Bengal,” says Mondal.
At the State Central Library in Kolkata’s Kankurgachi neighbourhood, every morning some 50-odd people line up to enter to access the library with their own books in their hands. It is a misconception that libraries only give access to books to people, says Mondal. More often, it just gives people a safe and quiet place to read and study, he adds.
“Students come here to study for everything from school exams to government entrance exams. People come here to prepare for jobs. So many stories like these exist in rural West Bengal. People bring their own books to the library because they do not have a conducive atmosphere to study at home,” says Mondal.
The Bengal Library Association operates from an office in Kolkata’s CIT neighbourhood and has 4,000 members. In addition to providing space for accessible learning, the Association advocates the improvement and expansion of library services, promotes the importance of libraries, supports the development of legislation that benefits libraries, and encourages the integration of technology into library services and operations. The association works independently and monitors the state of public libraries across West Bengal, advocating for their survival and functioning.
However, a lack of government funding and support means that rare books and collections in some of West Bengal’s oldest libraries are in a state of disrepair. There is also a lack of digitisation in the public libraries, an issue that the Bengal Library Association admits it needs to focus on.
“E-books and mobile phones are dominating the conservation. Can we give proper service for digital needs with reduced staff strength? But we hope continued recruitment will address this issue,” says Mondal.
He also points out that though the world has become more digital, there is a large section of people for whom e-books and digitisation are not accessible. “There are so many people who cannot afford expensive membership for libraries in Kolkata or other cities in West Bengal. So that is what the Bengal Library Association is focusing on: to make libraries accessible to these people,” he adds.