Book Collection
Motilal Nehru College and Lady Shri Ram College have one of the largest book collection in colleges in the University with over 1 lakh books in each library. Hindu College, with one of the oldest college libraries of the University (est. 1899) has over one lakh books as well.
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The library of Lady Shri Ram College. | Image Credits: Eeshani Kochhar[/caption]
Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies has a library much smaller in size with about 22 thousand books. SGND Khalsa College houses about 70 thousand
A lot of colleges however, complain of academic books that are too old and could use some upgradation. Several colleges lack enough books to cater for certain courses. College of Vocational Studies for example, has only one bookshelf for students pursuing English Honours.
Disabled-friendly
Rajdhani College boasts of ‘a seperate corner’ for disabled students. Shri Ram College of Commerce has a ‘resource centre’ for visually challenged students while a lot of colleges of the University, including Lady Shri Ram College offer audio visual services.
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The SRCC Library | Image Credits: Tanya Agarwal for DU Beat[/caption]
Indraprastha College for Women and SGTB Khalsa College have a lift for disabled students to access the books in the library. Miranda House has no such lift despite having two floors of library. Lady Shri Ram College has a Braille printing machine with all library notices being printed in Braille.
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St. Stephen’s College offers online assistance and JAWS (Job Access With Speech) enabled computers for the visually challenged.
Online Assistance
St. Stephen’s College is a clear winner among Delhi University Colleges in providing online library facilities. Not only does the college have a seperate section of the website dedicated to library services but they also have a WebOPAC interface which anyone can use to browse through the books available in the library. DU Website also has a WebOPAC interface for its central libraries. Unfortunately, nearly all colleges don’t provide this facility. Some college websites fail to provide even the basic information about their libraries, including Moti Lal Nehru College’s website.
Seating Arrangements and entry
A lot of colleges including SGND Khalsa complained of lacking seating space for students. SSCBS Library only manages to seat not more than 30 students at a time. Colleges like Lady Irwin College which have relatively lesser number of students enrolled still have ample of seating space in their reading hall.
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The SSCBS Library only manages to seat about 30 people in the reading room. | Image credits: Kartikeya Bhatotia for DU Beat[/caption]
Entry rules are pretty strict across the University college libraries. A lot of libraries require bags to be kept outside and some colleges like Jesus and Mary College refuse the entry of students if they are carrying any book which does not belong to the library.
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(The report has been compiled on the inputs provided by students from their respective colleges as well as the college websites)
Kartikeya Bhatotia
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