VARANASI : The iconic BHU Central Library (Sayaji Rao Gaekwad Library) with a student & faculty footfall of over 6000 every day, houses more than 15 lakh books, 90,000 e-books, and over 17,000 journals. The limited seating capacity of the library has been a challenge for many years. With the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Sudhir Kumar Jain’s relentless focus on creating state of art student amenities and strengthening the teaching-learning infrastructure, the seating capacity of the historic library is now set to be more than doubled than it was three years ago.
In 2021, the capacity of the Central Library was just 850 students. With the growing demand to enhance the library’s capacity, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Sudhir Kumar Jain issued a road map to prioritize space management and increase the seating and reading capacity. In a phased manner the first floor of the portion used by UGC-HRDC was made available to the library, adding 350 seats by the end of 2022. Further, the whole portion used by UGC-HRDC was converted into a reading hall and 250 additional seats were added taking the overall capacity of the Central Library to 1450. Prof. Sudhir Kumar Jain formally inaugurated this new reading hall facility which is created by shifting UGC-HRDC on the occasion of Independence Day.
Vice-Chancellor Prof. Sudhir Kumar Jain said, “We are emphasizing development and enhancement of student amenities to facilitate academic and professional excellence. Enriching our Central Library with resources as well as ample space is one of the steps we have taken in this regard. A G+5 extension block of the Central Library is nearing completion, which will further add more than 600 reading and seating capacity besides housing 70,000 books. With this the Central Library will have a reading hall capacity of nearly 2000 students.”
University Librarian Dr. D. K. Singh said that the Sayaji Rao Gaekwad Library has seen a major uplift in the past three years. “Thanks to the university administration led by Vice-Chancellor Prof. Sudhir Kumar Jain, we are no more faced with scarcity of funds, nor do we have challenges regarding availability of resources as well as books”, said Dr. Singh. The up-gradation of library facilities is greatly benefiting the university community at large and especially the students from the under privileged background, he added.
The university has taken a number of measures in order to make the library more accessible and student friendly. The annual allocation to library in the financial year 2023-24 was nearly five times than it was three years ago. The reading hall facility is open overnight from 8 am to 5 am next day as compared to 15 hours a day 3 years back. Efforts are ongoing to uplift and upgrade the Central Library with state of art modern facilities under the Institution of Eminence – BHU, initiative of the Government of India.
