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The Lahore that wasLibraries - Lahore_Real_Estate - 11-04-2010 04:31 PM
While Lahore was known as the City of Gardens, it also gained fame as a Centre of Learning, boasting some of the finest libraries in the subcontinent. These treasure troves of books were patronised by a very large number of Lahoris, whose appetite for reading was as voracious as their love for good food and fun.
The Dayal Singh Trust Library was established in 1908 on Nisbet Road in deference to the last will and testament of Sardar Dayal Singh Majithia, son of Ranjit Singh’s Chief of Ordnance, General Lehna Singh. In 1947, the building and its contents suffered severe damage due to fire and looting. It was after a lapse of 12 years that the facility was reopened to the public in 1964.
A marble statue of Sardar Dayal Singh, placed in the corridor of the library building, generated a controversy when a press report claimed that it had been stolen and sold at a lucrative price. Officials denied the allegation and said that the statue had been moved to make room for new books. Reportedly, the whereabouts of this historic piece of sculpture are still unknown.
The Punjab Public Library was established near the Lahore Museum, just off The Mall, by the order of Punjab’s Lieutenant Governor in 1884. It is said that an original version of this library was set up in a baradari constructed by Wazir Khan, the Governor of Lahore, during the reign of the Moghul Emperor Shahjahan. In 1918, the Government of India designated the facility as the Central Library of Northwest India for “inter circle library purposes”, a function that was assumed by 1929. This great resource of research and recreation continues to serve the citizens of Lahore to this day.
The Punjab University Library was housed in its old building near Anarkali, until it was shifted to its new location on the Quaid-i-Azam Campus in 1988. Established in 1882 with a purchased collection of two thousand volumes belonging to Sir Donald Macleod, this great resource of information had an awesome ambience, where everyone trod on silent feet and spoke in hushed tones. I remember passing through its portals from the Nila Gumbad side on numerous occasions, and being immediately swamped by a feeling of intellectual inadequacy in the mighty presence of so much knowledge.