Romain Rolland Library, Puducherry, Pondicherry India

Professor of Literature from the French Lyce’e of Pondicherry M.Bourdat while writing on reconstruction of history is candid in admitting that“ it would be tedious to revel exclusively in stones and inscriptions. There remain texts, not only more lively than stones but often valuable monuments themselves”. To look into these texts there cannot be a better place than the Library named after French scholar Romain Rolland, a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi.  

Romain Rolland Library, formerly known as Bibliotheque Publique, is one of the oldest Libraries in the country. It is named after Romain Rolland, a French scholar and a close companion of Mahatma Gandhi.

The library houses a collection of over 315,000 volumes in different languages. A separate section functions here to foster the reading habit of children. Another prominent feature is mobile library facility, which stocks over 8000 books. It is generally utilized by the rural folk.

Separate section for competitive exam books, open access system and microfilm unit are among the facilities. Apart from this, ready reference and current awareness services are available. Library is open from 7:30 hrs to 16:30 hrs except for Mondays and public holidays.

Located on the Romain Rolland Street, the library is in close proximity to major sites such as Aurobindo Ashram, Legislative Assembly and Head Post office in Pondicherry. The Romain Rolland Library next to Pondicherry Raj Niwas is a treasure trove of knowledge. With 3,38,304 books in its possession this heritage of Pondicherry which enables “a stimulating contact with manuscripts” and its possessions must be preserved. The care that is taken towards buildings and the money that flows towards architecture related projects must be diverted to knowledge based projects and perseverance of the rare manuscripts. But fortunately it is the French institutions that are still working in the right direction, whereas Government institutions have woken up to the demands of times only recently. National Mission for Manuscripts has launched a week long campaign beginning from November 2004 for digitizing History.5000 surveyors at the rate of 50 per districts will be combing 100 districts spread across various states to search for manuscripts. Sudha Goplakrishnan, Director of the Mission in a press story had asserted “ at the end of their effort, there will be no manuscript which the mission would not have for digitization”. All districts of Karnataka and Orissa are lucky to be included in this mission in the peninsular India. The other states have missed the bus in the South. After the private initiative of Tamizh Thatha U.Ve.Swaminatha Iyer, there has been no governmental effort to collect rare manuscripts of Tamil language. Now that UDA Government had declared Tamil as classical language efforts to add Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry into this 100 District’s list must be taken up. Many century old palm leaf manuscripts still remain at certain homes, before all could be lost they should be digitized” says Dr.Era.Thirumurugan of the Tamil Development Action Group, Pondicherry. To begin with we have to “ reinvent our history by preserving the rare collection of Books in the Romain Rolland Library. Around 27000 rare collection of books are there in Romain Rolland Library or to be precise it should be so, though the task of tracing the missing and damaged books is on to have an update of facts before feeding them into computers” says Murugappan, The Library Information Officer. All rare books in French, English and Tamil related to India had more or less been microfilmed says that unit’s assistant Noble.  

 The Romain Rolland library was established in 1872 and has a rich collection of more than 3,00,000 volumes in both French and English. It also boasts of a mobile library service which has a collection of more than 8000 books. These books are taken to nearby villages by bus, in order to make the books more accessible to the common man. The library also houses some rare editions of books. The reference section on the second floor is open to the general public.