Among Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III’s long lasting traditions in Vadodara city is the four-storeyed Baroda Central Library with its particular steel racks and glass floorings – a gold mine that houses over 3.5 lakh books in 6 languages. Located in the hectic Mandvi Gate location in the heart of the city, this library continues to use a life time subscription at Rs 40 and has a membership cost of Rs 2 each year.
Maharaja Sayajirao III developed the library in 1910 as part of his statewide policy of producing a well-organised town library system, right from the state capital to backwoods, besides motivating mobile libraries in locations where long-term ones might not be developed. The well-known Public Library Movement of Baroda State is thought about a golden chapter in the history of the Indian Public Library Movement.
Avid readers and bibliophiles continue to appreciate the Maharaja for his important function in making the library what it is today. (Express picture by Bhupendra Rana)
Modelled after world’s finest libraries
The two-storeyed building, made from wood beams, bricks, cement and steel, was imitated a few of the finest libraries in universities throughout the world. It was created by English designer Edwin Lutyens in 1910 under the guidance of kept in mind educationist Motibhai Amin. It remained in 1931 that the building of the library, commissioned in 1910, was finished at a cost of Rs 4 lakh, that included the fittings and furnishings in addition to the books.
Its interiors are divided into 4 levels and have 352 huge steel racks with two-side shelving centers that hold 3.5 lakh books in English, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, Urdu and Sindhi – the 6 languages frequently spoken in the erstwhile Baroda state. The floor covering in between the steel structure of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th ‘Reference Section’ floorings is comprised of 719 pieces of imported 19 mm thick Belgium glass plates of different sizes, producing an ethereal walking experience in the middle of the faint however apparent whiff of vanilla and cedarwood below a layer of the modern-day indolic odor.
Glass floorings to let in light
“In those days, the library did not have electricity, so the flooring was made of glass to ensure that the large windows, that are in the north-to-south orientation, provided bright, natural sunlight and fresh air throughout the day,” says senior clerk Bhavesh Dhonde. The metal frames of the bookshelves were imported from the United States of America therefore was the manual pulley-operated 1×1.5 feet elevator utilized to transfer books from the ground to the upper floorings. The stacking system in the library, built and created by J Snead and Co Iron Works in the U.S.A., is on par with a few of the greatest university libraries in the U.S.A., consisting of the Harvard University library.
Such was Maharaja’s enthusiasm for maintaining the library that he made sure that it had fire-proof mica-coated doors to keep the books from damage. That is not all, the bottom part of the bookshelves in each area includes a crevice in which oil might be put to keep bugs away. Dhonde says, “Since it has been constructed, not a single piece of glass or metal has been replaced. The library stands as it was built… We do not pour the oil into the racks anymore but twice a month, we undertake deep cleaning of the shelves… We also regularly prepare a list of the books that are beyond repair and with the approval of the Library Department in Gandhinagar, they are disposed of like all other scrap paper. However, we have not done away with the books before digitising them.”
The library is home to unusual books from the reign of the Gaekwads, consisting of administration records of the erstwhile kingdom from 1934 to 1936, royal books in addition to the records of the different Prants (provinces) under the state of Baroda. It has actually digitised over 1.89 lakh pages of unusual books that might not endure the wear and tears. “Many of these books have never been reprinted. But we thought that it would always be relevant to those who wish to read so we have digitised one lakh pages in PDF format… Those old books, for which reprints are available, are replaced as needed,” Dhonde includes.
A job near to the Maharaja’s heart
The library was a cog in the wheel of Sayajirao III’s bigger vision for education in the state of Baroda however it was likewise a job so near to his heart that the Maharaja likewise contributed to it 20,000 books from his personal collection. Besides, it has an unique mini rack with variations of classics like Shakespeare’s Othello, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Comedy of Errors in addition to a 19th-century French poetry mini, to name a few. This collection was talented to the Maharaja on his trip of Europe and America in 1909-10 that influenced his vision for town libraries. However, owing to their delicate state, the minis are not available for reading.
Sayajirao III had actually welcomed American curator William Alanson Borden to be the director of the state Department of Libraries on a three-year agreement. Borden, whose operate in New York had considerably amazed the Maharaja throughout his U.S.A. trip, is credited with developing detachable brochure card drawers at the Baroda Central Library. It was Borden who at first assisted establish the Library Department of Baroda state in Sarkarwada on December 12, 1910. Newton Mohan Dutt prospered Motibhai Amin as manager of libraries in 1914.
Sayajirao III’s library job for Baroda state, under the management of Borden, consisted of 45 town libraries and over 100 town libraries. It likewise consisted of 500 motorised mobile libraries, 85 of which continue going to date with grants from the Central Library. When Borden left after finishing his agreement, the Maharaja’s personal curator J S Kudalkar was sent along to New York by ship to find out about the library system. On his return, Kudalkar began a publication called Library Miscellany in Marathi, Gujarati and English.
“Where mobile libraries could not reach, the Maharaja sent a system with projectors to gather the villagers and make them read books… Today, we do have a declining number of readers for the Urdu and the Sindhi sections but the library has been able to live up to the vision that the Maharaja had for it by bringing in regular readers every day,” Dhonde says.
Keeping history alive
The Central Library in Vadodara is unquestionably among the couple of heritage structures that keep history alive. Even in the digital age, it continues to draw its customers as it did almost 100 years earlier. The library has an overall of 35,880 members, consisting of 2,891 kids. The financing area concerns a day-to-day average of 1,056 books with the help of now-automated library cards, the system having actually developed throughout the years. On average, 565 individuals utilize the Reference Section every day and 945 trainees utilize the reading room daily, the library information programs.
Advocate Jaideep Verma, joint secretary of the Heritage Trust of which Radhikaraje Gaekwad of the royal family is a client, says, “The Government Library Department has preserved the Central Library of Baroda quite well, we must say. They keep adding books to the collection too. Although they converted a garden in the compound into a reading room, which is a study area available until midnight for students preparing for competitive exams, the main building and library have been retained as it is. The manual lift, which was installed to ferry books, however, is currently not operational and the trust has offered to repair and restore it.”
Avid readers and bibliophiles continue to appreciate the Maharaja for his important function in making the library what it is today. Kinjal Patel, a trainee, says, “The Central Library is definitely one of the best in the country. The collection of books as well as the regal ambience cannot be matched. In the digital age too it is the scent and the texture of a hand-held book that can really provide the best reading experience… I have been visiting the library since I was little because my grandfather was a member and would visit the place every morning to bring home a book for his daily reading.”
The library stays open on throughout the days other than legal holidays. The recommendation area is closed on Sundays, while the financing area is not available on Mondays. New members, who need to pay a refundable deposit of Rs 40 for a life time subscription, are anticipated to bring a guarantor’s certificate which might be from a legal representative, medical professional, school principal or a gazetted officer. In the lack of a guarantor, a striving member can end up being a self-guarantor by paying a deposit of Rs 100, which is returnable when the subscription ends.
