The Evolution of Librarianship in India: From Ancient to Modern Times

Libraries in India have a story that stretches back over two thousand years. Long before the term “library science” existed, India had thriving centres of learning where manuscripts were copied, preserved, and studied with great care. The journey from manuscript-filled monasteries to today’s digital information centres reveals how the profession of librarianship slowly took shape. Understanding this evolution helps explain why the field carries such deep cultural roots and why it continues to matter in a knowledge-driven society.

Ancient and medieval libraries 🔗

The earliest organised collections of knowledge in India were not standalone buildings but parts of larger institutions of learning. Education in ancient times was broadly divided into two streams: the gurukulas, or Vedic schools that focused on primary learning, and the viharas, the Buddhist monasteries that served as centres of higher education. It was within these monastic institutions that India developed what can be considered its first true libraries.

Buddhist viharas as centres of knowledge 🔗

Between roughly the 3rd century BCE and the 12th century CE, Buddhist viharas built impressive manuscript collections. These monasteries, when grouped together, were known as mahaviharas. The most famous among them was Nalanda, located in present-day Bihar. Nalanda’s library became a key source for the Sanskrit texts that pilgrims like Xuanzang and Yijing carried to East Asia.

The scale of Nalanda’s library is striking even by modern standards. Tibetan accounts describe a library complex called Dharmaganja made up of three buildings, one of them reportedly nine storeys high, housing manuscripts on subjects ranging from philosophy and logic to medicine and grammar. The Chinese traveller Yijing is said to have spent months there copying hundreds of Sanskrit works. Entry to Nalanda was famously competitive, with gatekeepers conducting rigorous oral examinations before admitting students.

Nalanda was not alone. Taxila (Takshashila), considered one of the oldest seats of higher learning in the subcontinent, held collections covering Hinduism, political science, literature, medicine, and philosophy. Other important mahaviharas included Vikramashila, Valabhi, Odantapuri, and Somapura. These institutions attracted scholars from China and Central Asia, making them genuinely international centres of study.

An important point about these early libraries is that their main purpose was preservation rather than public access. Books were handwritten, rare, and treated as prized possessions. The goal was storage and security, with use limited to a privileged few scholars and monks. This preservation-focused model defined libraries across the ancient world.

Mughal libraries and royal patronage 🔗

The medieval period brought a new wave of library building, this time driven by royal patronage. The tradition began in the Delhi Sultanate, where Sultan Jalaluddin Khilji established an imperial library with the poet Amir Khusrau as its librarian. The Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya set up a library at his khanqah in Delhi through public donations, an early example of a collection open to common people rather than only the elite.

The Mughals carried this passion for books to new heights. Babur established the first Mughal imperial library, and his son Humayun was such a devoted collector that he is said to have died after falling down the stairs of his library at the Sher Mandal in Delhi. The greatest expansion came under Emperor Akbar, who, despite never learning to read himself, built one of the finest libraries in the subcontinent’s history.

An inventory taken after Akbar’s death in 1605 listed around 24,000 illustrated and well-bound volumes. The library covered theology, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, and history. Akbar also founded a translation bureau, which produced Persian versions of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, creating a remarkable cross-cultural exchange of ideas.

What is notable for the history of the profession is how the Mughal library was organised. It was managed by a head librarian, called the Nazim or Mutamad, supported by assistants who recorded book details in separate subject registers. The staff included scribes, calligraphers, bookbinders, and gilders. This division of labour and the practice of subject-wise cataloguing show an early professional approach to managing collections.

British influence on Indian libraries 🔗

Colonial rule reshaped the Indian library landscape in lasting ways. The British introduced the printing press on a large scale, the modern public library model, and library legislation. They also founded several institutions that survive today. However, this influence came with clear limitations rooted in colonial priorities.

The Calcutta Public Library and modern beginnings 🔗

The Calcutta Public Library, opened in 1836, is widely regarded as the starting point of modern public libraries in the region. Its collection grew rapidly, reaching a large number of volumes within a decade. Yet it was not truly public in the modern sense. As a subscription library, its use was confined to a small, affluent section of society, with Dwarkanath Tagore among its early proprietors.

The British saw public libraries partly as a tool to spread Western education and literary culture. The idea was that circulating English books would shape the opinions, tastes, and intellect of the local population. After the uprising of 1857, European interest in the Calcutta Public Library waned, and the institution gradually declined.

Library legislation and the Imperial Library 🔗

A major colonial contribution was the framework of library legislation. The Press and Registration of Books Act of 1867 required publishers to register their works, and it gave certain libraries the privilege of receiving copies of books published in the country. This was an early form of legal deposit, a practice central to building national collections.

Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, played a decisive role in this period. He noted the rich but underused collections of the Imperial Library, formed in 1891 from several secretariat libraries, and the declining Calcutta Public Library. The Imperial Library Act of 1902 merged the two, and the reconstituted Imperial Library opened to the public at Metcalfe Hall in 1903. Curzon intended it to be a library of reference, a working place for students, and a repository for future historians.

The Baroda library movement 🔗

Not all progressive developments came from the British administration. One of the most remarkable initiatives of the colonial era was led by an Indian ruler. Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda, deeply impressed by the public libraries he saw in the United States, decided to extend free library services to his people. He invited the American librarian William Alanson Borden in 1910 to set up a scientifically organised, free, open-access public library system across the state. The Baroda model stood out because it embraced the access-focused philosophy that would later define modern librarianship.

Post-independence developments and the rise of a profession 🔗

After 1947, librarianship in India transformed from a set of practical skills into a recognised academic discipline and profession. This shift was driven by visionary individuals, new institutions, and a growing belief that libraries should serve democracy and education for all citizens.

S.R. Ranganathan and the foundations of the profession 🔗

No discussion of Indian librarianship is complete without Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (1892-1972), widely honoured as the father of library science in India. A mathematician by training, he became the first librarian of the University of Madras in 1924 and devoted his life to building the theoretical foundations of the field.

Ranganathan made two contributions that shaped the profession worldwide. The first was the Five Laws of Library Science, published in 1931. These deceptively simple principles state that books are for use, every reader his or her book, every book its reader, save the time of the reader, and that a library is a growing organism. The laws shifted the focus of libraries away from being mere book repositories and toward becoming dynamic, user-centred institutions.

His second major contribution was the Colon Classification system, introduced in 1933. This was the first major faceted classification scheme, allowing subjects to be broken into component facets and combined flexibly. Commentators have observed that this analytico-synthetic approach anticipated the kind of flexible reshuffling of information that computers would later make possible, which is why his ideas remain relevant in the age of digital metadata and online catalogues.

Beyond theory, Ranganathan worked tirelessly to build the profession’s institutions. He designed one of the country’s first formal library science programmes at Banaras Hindu University, headed the library science department at the University of Delhi, and in 1962 established the Documentation Research and Training Centre (DRTC) in Bangalore. He received the Padma Shri in 1957 in recognition of his work.

National institutions and legal foundations 🔗

Independence brought important institutional milestones. The Imperial Library was renamed the National Library through the Imperial Library (Change of Name) Act of 1948, and it was opened to the public by education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1953. The National Library, located in Kolkata, was given the status of an institution of national importance.

The Delivery of Books and Newspapers (Public Libraries) Act of 1954 strengthened the system of legal deposit, requiring publishers to deposit copies of their books with the National Library and a few other designated libraries. Material received under this act forms the basis of the Indian National Bibliography. In 1951, the Delhi Public Library opened as the first UNESCO public library pilot project in the region, designed to serve as a model for the rest of Asia.

Professional associations and library education 🔗

A profession needs organised bodies to set standards and represent its members. The Indian Library Association (ILA) was founded in 1933 during the First All India Library Conference at Calcutta, providing a unified platform for librarians across the country. After independence, more specialised bodies followed, including the Indian Association of Special Libraries and Information Centres (IASLIC), founded in 1955 in Kolkata, and the Indian Association of Teachers of Library and Information Science (IATLIS).

Government support also expanded. The University Grants Commission shaped library science education and standards in universities, while the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF), established in 1972 under the Ministry of Culture, became the central agency for promoting public library services across states. Together, these bodies helped move librarianship from an informal occupation toward a structured profession with recognised qualifications, ethics, and career paths.

From librarianship to information science 🔗

Over recent decades, the field has broadened considerably. The traditional role of the librarian, centred on acquiring, organising, and lending physical books, has expanded to include managing digital repositories, electronic databases, and information networks. The discipline itself is now commonly called Library and Information Science (LIS), reflecting this wider scope. Interestingly, many of the principles guiding digital systems echo ideas first articulated by Ranganathan, showing how the theoretical foundations laid in the early twentieth century continue to inform practice today.

A continuous thread across the centuries 🔗

Looking across this long history, a clear pattern emerges. The ancient and medieval periods treated libraries primarily as repositories to preserve precious manuscripts for a select few. The British era introduced printing, public access models, and legislation, but within the constraints of colonial aims. It was only after independence, through the work of figures like Ranganathan and the building of national institutions, that librarianship matured into a full profession committed to making knowledge accessible to everyone. Each era added something lasting, and together they form the foundation on which today’s information professionals stand.

What do you think? If Ranganathan’s Five Laws were written for a world of printed books, how well do you think they apply to digital libraries and AI-driven information systems? And which period in this long history do you believe contributed most to the librarianship we recognise today?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_mahavihara
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_institutions_of_learning_in_the_Indian_subcontinent
3. https://scroll.in/article/767632/how-akbar-came-to-love-books-though-he-never-learnt-to-read
4. https://www.newsweek.com/exploring-mughal-empire-british-library-63543
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Library_of_India
6. https://nationallibrary.gov.in/home/brief
7. https://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1908989.pdf
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._R._Ranganathan
9. https://www.ifla.org/wp-content/uploads/ranganathan-award-details.pdf
10. https://www.librarianshipstudies.com/2019/02/s-r-ranganathan.html
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Library_Association
12. https://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/35281/5/Unit-14.pdf