English Language Collection

The National Library has an invaluable collection in English language, because of the systematic collection development by Calcutta Public Library as well as by the Imperial Library. Way back in 1848 itself, an attempt was being made to acquire journals issued by the foreign learned institutions. Serious works were purchased in large numbers than the light literature. Now a days also the same policy is being continued.
At present the library has a rich collection of English books and other reading materials in almost all the subjects. The collection is extremely rich in humanities, British and Indian history and literature

Pantographia
by Edmond Fry
One of the old books in English.

Foreign languages collections

One of the aims of the National Library is to collect all the books published on India, anywhere in the world and in any language. At the same time it is also collecting a fair collection of reading materials in different languages for the use of the country.

Imperial library had a good number of Arabic and Persian works and few other foreign language books. In 1985 European Languages Division was reorganized and five separate divisions were formed. They are: East Asian Languages Division, Germanic Languages Division, Romance Languages Division, Slavonic Languages Division,West Asian and African Languages Division .

The foreign language works are mainly acquired through purchase, Gift and exchange. All the above language divisions are responsible for collection development, collection organisation and information dissemination to the readers in their respective languages. They also maintain their own stacks and provide reading facilities to the readers.

East Asian Languages Collection

A separate division was established to collect, process and preserve Chinese and other East Asian languages. At present the collection has 15,000 Chinese and one thousands each in Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, Nepali and Thai languages.

Germanic Languages Collection

Germanic languages division was formed in the library in the year 1985 to acquire, process, stack and provide the books to the users in Germanic languages. The division has books in German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish languages. But the largest number of books is in German language. The division has book exchange relations with seven Germanic language speaking countries.

Berliner Zeitung, a news paper which was being published from East Germany is available in this collection.

A book of Indian poems trnslated into German Language

Romance Languages Collection

Romance Languages division came in to existence in 1985, along with other foreign languages divisions. Though the collection includes books and other materials in Romance group of languages, the largest number of books is in French language, about 5,000. About 2000 Romanian and a handful of books in Italian and Spanish are also available in this collection.

Slavonic Languages Collection

The collection in Slavic languages, comprises of the languages of erstwhile Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. It deals with reading materials in 28 languages. But the largest collection is in Russian language. At present the division has 65,000 books.

West Asian and African Languages Collection

Buhar Library may be considered as the nucleus of West Asian and African languages collection. Though this division has a handful of books in other West Asian languages, like Hebrew and Amharic. The largest number of books is in Persian and Arabic languages. Approximately 12,000 Arabic and 12,000 Persian language books are in the collection. The collection includes the lexicons compiled and prepared by Indians authors of the past and edited by the 'native' scholars of the college of Fort William and European orientalists of the said college. The division also holds a large numbers of historical works published under the 'Bibliotheca Indica' of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the 19th century.
Large number of Arabic and Persian books and manuscripts can also be seen in Sir Abdur Rahim Collection, Hidayat Husain Collection, Zakaria Collection and Imambara Collection.
Even Jadunath Sarkar collection also has 200 Persian manuscripts. This collection of manuscripts is especially rich in works on the later Mughal Period (1659-1837) and the early British regime of India.

An illustrated page from a Persian Manuscript: Mahatyam Ekadashi