Love books? Visit Delhi's libraries

The smell of musty pages permeates through the book-lined shelves of polished wood, the sound of silence finds company in esoteric thoughts as faces pore over reams of printed matter. Wondering what all this is about? Well, it’s nothing but a leaf taken from the pages of Delhi’s many libraries, no tourist hotspots but surely havens for the city’s bibliophiles.

In an age when books get pricier by the day, a lending library comes as a saving grace. Take, for instance, the popular British Council Library, BCL in collegespeak. Any day, BCL swarms with a motley bunch of book lovers—college and school students hunting reading material for their exams and term papers, a few PhD hopefuls scouting the neatly-lined shelves for reference and the city’s literati stopping by for their regular fill of fiction.

For a place that is the hub of constant activity, BCL is surprisingly quiet and reader friendly. Make any noise and a stern look will do the rest. Apart from offering library facilities BCL also hosts regular English language classes and counselling programmes for students seeking overseas admission.

Bang opposite BCL is an imposing building that houses the American Library. If you have the patience of getting past its security checks—which give you the impression that you are probably entering a high-security zone—you’ll be duly rewarded with all things American … errr only within the covers. A hearty dose of politics and international relations and mighty tomes of American literature are lined neatly, in clinical precision. The ambience here seems much calmer than that of BCL.

If you’re wondering who gave Delhi its love for books, just make a trip to the Delhi Public Library. The first public library founded by the government of independent India, it today has over 15 lakh books in Hindi, English, Urdu and Punjabi. Delhi Public Library has also branched out into various unique ventures like Braille libraries, prisoner’s library and mobile libraries.

The National Archives of India is almost second home to any student pursuing an advanced course in history. It has some of the oldest and rare publications on a variety of subjects related to Indian history and governance. If the sight of stacked-up paper overwhelms you, get tech savvy and use the library’s automated retrieval system.

If science is your forte, you are sure to trace your steps towards the National Science Library, where Indian and foreign periodicals on science and technology vie for your attention. It also has a good documentation centre where research activities in the country are well documented. Interestingly, dictionaries in foreign languages find shelf space here as well.

And if you thought that children get left behind in this book-browsing binge, think again. The library at Children’s Book Trust has a good collection of books for children, both fiction and non-fiction and in several languages, that encourage kids to explore the good old world of books.

Making a beeline already?