Media365
4 min readOct 1, 2026 01:39 PM IST
First published on: Oct 1, 2026 at 01:38 PM IST
As I began to write this article, two distant but related pieces of news caught my attention.
The first was in a magazine of the University of Nottingham’s Manuscript and Special Collections, which mentioned that in the 17th century East Midlands (a region in the UK), there were about 45 Parish libraries, out of which 25 have still survived today. Parish libraries were run from churches and were often collections of books of individual clergymen. The Manuscript and Special Collections division, which houses the rare collection of these books, is organising an exhibition, titled Secret and Sacred Libraries, effectively opening the local ecclesiastical book heritage to a wider public. It was heartening how historic libraries and collections that continued to be preserved are being celebrated.
The other news, again broadly relating to the religious world, was slightly depressing. In an investigation, The Indian Express reported that over 2 lakh books of the Tulsi Sadan Library, a library under the Indian Union Ministry of Culture, have been homeless for 15 years. These books have been trapped in boxes and are awaiting shelves and readers since they were dislocated from the National School of Drama in New Delhi in 2011, when it was shut due to the construction of a Delhi metro station. Tulsi Sadan Library was opened in 1972 to commemorate 400 years of Ramcharitmanas and encompasses rare and special books in 14 Indian languages.
Libraries and archives are not immune to dislocation or temporary shutdowns. They are. But when they are not rehabilitated and given a better place promptly, they lose their value and significance. Libraries and archives have a rhythm with readers who have their own rhythms of reading, writing, and appreciating a historical collection. When the two are disturbed, a rare collection library loses not only its prime customers but also those who can place its collections in a proper literary and historical context.
Specific and local rare book collections — whether it is the Tulsi Sadan Library or the collection of Lucknow’s famous press, now archived, the Munshi Nawal Kishore Press (founded in 1858) or the rare books of the Rampur Raza Library in Uttar Pradesh — are as powerful a heritage as the Ashokan pillars and the Taj Mahal. These books are a window to the world that may have gone, but they talk about a world that defines us as who we are, how we think, and how we behave. History lives in us. The only ways to reach that deep part of ourselves are rare books, our built heritage, and our collective memory, which is gradually fading.
We must act before it is gone. I do not want to only lament, although that is the natural emotional response after reading such news. As a practitioner of history, author of a book, and a frequent user of rare books, archives, and special collections across the world, I would like to recommend practical steps for our governments, heritage bodies, and libraries and archives.
Protect our rare book heritage by preserving books as they are, by training and employing archivists, by digitising historical works, and most importantly, by facilitating and welcoming readers. Digitisation and preservation do not automatically mean easy access; rather, sometimes they can mean restrictions if appropriate software platforms are not being used to classify and search records, if trained and passionate archivists are not there to welcome readers, and if access to collections is made through a myriad of bureaucratic paperwork. To make India a knowledge capital, we must preserve, protect, and open our libraries, archives, and collections for everyone. We must strive for “knowledge without barriers”.
The writer is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham and author of The Silent Rebellion: Labour, Caste, and Education in Colonial India
