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RATAN TATA LIBRARY The Delhi School of Economics Society
received a benefaction of Rs One Lakh from the
Ratan Tata Trust for its Library. That is how the name Ratan Tata Library of
Delhi School of Economics came to stay. Subsequently in 1989, the Ratan Tata
Trust gave a grant of Rs. 2 Lakhs to meet partly
the cost of adding an annexe to the Library
building which was completed in 1986 at a cost of Rs.
6 Lakhs. The addition of the new block enabled the library to consolidate the
holdings of periodicals. The ground floor, incl. mezannine
houses the back files of periodicals and in the first floor current issues of
periodicals are kept and displayed. This floor also serves as an exclusive
reading room for current periodicals and serials. In 1992 the Government of
Netherlands, as part of its world wide effort in international cooperation
bestowed a benefaction of Dutch Guilders 80,000/- including as endowment of
Dutch Guilders 43,750/- (App. Rs.9,50,000) for reading materials to establish
Prof. Sukhamoy Chakravarty
Study Room in Ratan Tata Library in memory of Late Prof. Sukhamoy
Chakravarty. The Ministry of Finance, Government of
India has bestowed endowments of Rs. 7 Crores to the Delhi School of Economics between 1994 to
2004 for the maintenance of journals collection and modernization of the
Ratan Tata Library. And further, an additional corpus of Rs.
7 Crores has been granted by the Ministry of
Finance, GOI in March 2012. With a modest beginning in 1949,
very valuable additions to the collection of the RTL were made by Dr.
V.K.R.V. Raos personal efforts. He secured gifts of
books and back numbers of periodicals from the Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C.; the Institute of Pacific Relations, New York; the New
School of Social Research, New York; the Royal Institute of International
Affairs, London; the British Library of Political and Economic Sciences,
London; and the National Book Centre, London. A grant of two thousand dollars
from the state Department of United States was used for the purchase of books
from that country. This was the nucleus around which the Ratan Tata Library
has grown. Prof.B. N. Ganguli
who later became Vice Chancellor of University of Delhi (1967-1969) was the
first one to look after the RTL during its formative years (Dharma Kumar
& Dilip Mookherjee:
D. School. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. p
14-15). The RTL is one of the best libraries in Social Sciences in the
country considering the collections it has. The Ratan Tata Library became a part of
the University Library in 1957, when the Delhi School of Economics ceased to
be an autonomous institution and its management was taken over by the
University of Delhi. The Ratan Tata Library now serves post-graduate
students, research scholars and faculty members of the University and its
affiliated Colleges in the above mentioned disciplines. Besides the regular members, scholars
from India and abroad visit the Library for varying periods and make use of
its valuable resources. The total collection of the library, at present, is
about 3.25 Lakhs, including books, bound volumes of periodicals, government
reports, documents of international organizations and electronic databases. The Library has been designated as a
depository of publications brought out by the United Nations and
International Organizations like FAO, ILO, IMF, IBRD, GATT etc. The Library
has also exchange agreement with about 70 institutions all over the world and
receives publications in exchange of Indian Economic Review & Occasional
Papers (Economics). In addition to the Ratan Tata Library, the books and
periodicals resources of various libraries situated in and outside Delhi are
made available to the members of the RTL through DELNET. |