About Library

"City College Library: A Brief Profile" gives an overall view of the library facilities available at City College. With the long tradition of collective efforts of the staff members of the library, we have been striving hard to meet the present day demands of our users by rendering various services. We seek to do in a personalized and hospitable environment in spite of some infrastructural limitations.

The City College owes its origin to a widespread educational movement in Bengal towards the later part of the 19th century. The college first started as a High School on 6th January, 1879. In 1881, the school was upgraded to a first grade degree college. From its modest beginning, City College has grown in to a mighty institution during the last 126 years. At present it has 2993 students in 16 departments, served by 101 teachers and 51 non-teaching staff members.

The library at present provides services mostly through a manual system. However, keeping in mind the present day requirements, we have started the process of automating the services. An INTERNET facility is available to the users. We are progressing towards fuller automation, but not definitely without human touch.

The Central Library is an integral part of the institution. The library supports the aims of the college towards imparting education and providing the latest information to the students for developing their quest for knowledge and self reliance .It is located in the North-East corner of the second floor having an area of 2300 sq.ft. consisting of Information Display Section, Circulation Desk, Reading Room, Stack Room, Processing Room and Reading Room for faculty members. Apart from the Central Library, the College has 13 departmental libraries under the faculties of Arts, Science and Commerce. The users are mostly students of our college studying degree courses in various disciplines and teaching and non-teaching staff members of the institution.

Library Hours:
The Library remains open on all working days as follows: 11:00 A.M. to 04:30 P.M.

Members:
The membership of the library is open to the teachers, students and non-teaching staff members of the college. The outgoing students can keep books up to university examination. The reading facilities are provided to the ex-students of the college.

Departmentsl Seminar Library:
To supplement the services provided by the central library, we have 13 departmental libraries accessible to students and teachers alike. The list of the books available in some departmental libraries can be viewed from the computer of the central library.

Automation and Networking:
We use KOHA, integrated library management software, installed in 2018 as a part of automation program. At that time, we have used standalone server. We have shifted from standalone server to Cloud server during September 2023. We have started automation through SOUL software, designed and developed by INFLIBNET Centre, a statutory body of UGC. The bibliographic information of the books procured on and from 01.04.2004 has updated on SOUL database. The Koha has two interfaces and various modules. The two most important and significant interfaces are staff interface and user interface. The Staff interface is used for bibliographic data entry of books and other resources and other housekeeping activities. The user interface is used for accessing the various records of the library holding including detailed bibliographic information of the books and other resources. Keeping in mind the present-day use of smart phone by the users, we have generated QR Code for Staff interface as well as user interface – Koha OPAC.

Bibliographic Database of Special Collection:
It is our constant endeavour to identify the rare and valuable documents and preserve them separately. We are preparing the bibliographic records of these valuable wealth of the library in electronic format and making an effort to make people aware of these treasure resources. The bibliographic records of the rare books are being entered in the SOUL database.

Digitization of old and valuable documents:
As the first task of our digital preservation we are scanning the title page of our rare documents and copies of the same are displayed for information. We have scanned full text of one of our valuable documents published in 1904 – "Brief History of City College : reported at the silver jubilee of the college held on 23rd January, 1904" and preserved it in CDs for use of the users, keeping the hard copy separately.

Special Activity of the Library:
We have donated 333 books to the local Higher Secondary Institutions, namely, Brahmo Balika Bidyalaya and Athenium Institution for Boys as per Director of Public Instruction’s letter no. – 232-UGC dated 16.09.2002 vide G.B. Resolution dated 12.12.2002 and 15.12.2003.

Limitations:
Keeping in mind of the inherent limitations of the 125 years old institution in terms of space and time constraint; age old design of the library; burden of the outdated and torn out books and human resources, we are striving hard to provide better services to our potential user community.