Connemara Public Library at Chennai is one of the four National Depository Libraries which receive a copy of all books, newspapers and periodicals published in India. Established in 1890 the library is a repository of centuries-old publications, wherein lie some of the most respected works and collections in the country. It also serves as a depository library for the UN.
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The Library's beginnings go back to 1860, when Jean Mitchel set up a small library as part of the Madras Museum.[1] Hundreds of books had been found to be surplus in the libraries of Haileybury College (where Indian civilians were trained in England) and these were sent to the Madras Government, which in turn handed them over to the Madras Museum. Conceived on the lines of the British Museum Library, it was part of the Madras Museum till 1890, when the need for a free public library prompted the then Governor of Madras, Lord Connemara, to lay the foundation on 22 March 1890. It opened in 1896 and was indeed essentially free: a small deposit had to be paid but this was refundable. It became the state central library in 1948.[1]
The library was as part of a cultural complex that grew in the grounds of what was once called The Pantheon. The entire complex now boasts buildings that reflect architectural unity, even while demonstrating the various stages of Indo-Saracenic development, from Gothic-Byzantine to Rajput Mughal and Southern Hindu Deccani.
The new building, which was added to the Library in 1973, has a vast collection of books, a much sought after text-book section, a periodicals hall, a reference room, a video room, an entire floor for books from the Indian languages, a Braille Library and an IAS study centre. Efforts are on to fully computerise the library database, which could ensure easy access to books. The library has a collection of over 600,000 books.
In 1981 the central government ordered that the library became one of the four national depository libraries.[2]
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