National Museum

The blueprint for establishing the National Museum in Delhi was prepared by the Maurice Gwyer Committee on May 1946. On August 15, 1949, the National Museum, New Delhi, was inaugurated in the Rashtrapati Bhawan by Shri R.C. Rajagopalachari, the Governor-General of India. The foundation of the present building was laid by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, on May 12, 1955. The Museum presently holds approximately 2,00,000 objects of a diverse nature, both Indian as well as foreign, and its holdings cover a time span of more than five thousand years of Indian cultural heritage. The National Museum Library is a ‘Research and Reference Library’ with a choice collection of books on various subjects represented in the Museum. Books and journals on subjects like Art, Archaeology, Pre-historic & Proto-historic, Anthropology-Physical and cultural, Civilization and Culture, Conservation, Decorative Arts, History, Museology, Paintings, Preservation and allied subjects such as Indian philosophy and religions, besides good Encyclopaedic Reference books are collected for research and reference purpose. It contains over seventy thousand volumes of books, bound journals as well as several Indian and international journals and magazines. The Library has been the proud recipient of several prestigious personal book collections such as the Elwin collection, Satyam Bhai collection, Dr L.P. Sihare collection, Desikacharya collection and the Heeramanek collection.

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