History of St. Xavier’s College Library
INFRASTRUCTURE
The College and High School were together in one premises from 1869 to 1911. The Library started in 1887-88. It was located in the front building on ground floor and was called the Students’ Library to distinguish it from the Fathers’ Library. In Dec. 1911 it was transferred to a room on the 2nd floor of the new building (the wing facing Rang Bhavan). In 1914, it was shifted to a corner of the old College Hall. Fr. Palacios designed the new College Hall and a spacious library on top of it. The construction started in 1933 and the library finally moved to its own premises in 1937. The governor and Lady Brabourne inaugurated the Library on 25th Jan 1937. This is a heritage structure in Gothic style, with an area 2834 sq. m. For its architectural details, design and furniture, refer to Our New Library by Theophilus Aguiar in “A chapter in the history of St. Xavier’s College, 1933-1940.” Instructions for the running of the Library by Rev. Fr. Palacios in the same book reflects his vision and ethos for our library culture.
The Fr. Palacios Trophy for Inter-Collegiate Dramatics, a silver replica of the Hall and Library building, a rolling trophy started in 1941, from the St. Xavier’s College Parsi Association, adorns the entrance of the Honours Room (HR) today.
The science departmental libraries were merged into the College Library to form a “Centralised Science Library” in 1970, this was inaugurated by Dr. Y.M. Freitas, Vice Principal of the College on 25th June 1970.
Only half of the HR was available to the users, and the rest was a storage area for cupboards containing books that were brought from science departments. Referred to as “godown” by the Library staff, the cupboards were arranged in lines with very narrow space in between. The cubicles were designed as Study areas for staff, so students could get guidance from their teachers in the Library. When these cupboards were moved into the cubicles to clear the HR, the renovated HR as we see it today, was created. The new HR was made open access. The cubicles which were allotted to faculty, of mainly Arts Departments, from 1937 till then, had to be relinquished to accommodate these cupboards. Only one cubicle was kept for the staff after 1994. A Staff Reading Area was made, with a large table and a dozen chairs, at the quiet end of HR. The new HR was inaugurated by Dr P.C. Alexander, Governor of Maharashtra, on 5th Dec. 1993, as part of the 125 yr. celebration programme.
A small space in the HR, near the rear emergency exit was made into a Kamgar Room for the Library attendants to have their lunch and to change. There are four emergency exits each, at the front and back of the RL, of which only half are free today, other four are blocked.
In 2012-13, Two cubicles were converted in to peer learning cubicles (for group learning) for students. accommodating approx. 10 students each. We had to give up our Stationery cubicle in the Reference Library and the Wadia and Polson Collection cubicle became the other Peer Learning Cubicle in the HR.
The Reference Library now has two Reserve Counters, Wi-Fi, 2 OPAC terminals, 4 internet access terminals and 168 seats.
The Librarian’s Room in the HR is now occupied by a staff member, as a spacious room was designed in the lending Library for the Librarian, with this Four cubicles are Library Staff working areas, one is used by Commerce section, one houses the Counseling course cupboards and books. . One cubicle houses our Christianity Collection.The First cubicle on the East side is used for Photocopying services, and the first cubicle on the west side is taken up by the Digitization project. All other cubicles are packed with bound vols. Of journals, Rare Book Collection.
The Library Development Project 1976-1977: A new functional library with open access was designed and created on the first floor of the college by the Librarian Dominick Fernandes. With a mezzanine structure, and a larger FSI, 3358 sq.m., this has a seating capacity of 62. This was inaugurated on 3rd Dec. 1977 by H.E. Dr. Simon Cardinal Pimenta. While this was called the Lending Library (LL), the first being renamed the Reference Library (RL) with the Honours Room(HR). The LL today houses over 60,000 books. Open access library for undergraduate and junior college students was a revolutionary step. There were no college libraries taking this bold step then and even today. Open access embodies the spirit of the Library, reflecting all the Five Laws of Library Science by Dr. S.R. Ranganathan, father of Library science in India.
Electrical Lighting : The Library desks in the RL were designed with “cleverly concealed” individual lights. The sodium vapour Lamps in the ceiling giving a yellow dim light in the RL and HR were replaced with CFL bulbs in 2009(?). The electrical wiring in the lending Library was completed redone in May 2011. Plug points for charging were made available in the new wiring. Solar Electricity was provided to the RL from Jan 2013 to Dec 2014.
Structural repairs on a major scale were carried out to the Reference library in May – August 2004 and to the Lending Library in 1997, 2006 and again in 2015. In May 2015, we carried about 60,000 books from the Lending Library to the HR and RL cubicles and back when repairs to LL ceiling were done.
Closed Circuit TV camera system was installed in both RL and LL in Dec. 2017.
Furniture, Fixtures, Equipment including Services etc.
Photocopying: The Great Eastern Shipping Co. Ltd. donated the cost of a photocopying machine in 1977-78. By 1990s there were two machines operated by the Library attendants. The service was outsourced to Ms. Daksha Copiers from 2003. From then, they provide, Colour photocopies, printouts, enlarged copies, spiral binding and more services.
Fumigation Chamber: An old iron chest was converted into a fumigation chamber in May 2005. It is housed in the LL. Old books attacked by insects are fumigated with vapours of thymol.
Bags Counter: The RL design included a bags counter, as the Library grew, this was converted into a service counter. It later began in the space below the staircase leading up to the RL. This was stopped and revived after a long gap in 2004, with a special Bags Counter attendant.
Library Spaces relinquished over the years: The Commerce Office was a Library cyclostyling room+ reading area for staff till 199?. The Godown on top of RL, 2nd floor was surrendered in 2007. The 1st cubicle in RL is used for photocopying, 2nd by Commerce section, and Cubicle 17 houses Books and Cupboards of the Counseling course.
3 M RFID System : An electromagnetic detection Gate was installed in the RL in June 2012, and another in May 2015 in the LL. Each one of these come with their sensor and magntising-demagnetising units. This is a Library security system to check theft of books. A mgnetic tape has been fitted in most of the books.
Library Computerisation
The Librarian, Ms. Medha Taskar and Asstt. Librarian Mr. Michael Lewis visited half a dozen libraries, including the British Council Library, the Jawaharlal Nehru Library of the University, Ramnarain Ruia College Library, to review library softwares in use and discussed the pros and cons with librarians. Demonstrations of softwares were arranged in the Library. Finally, SLIM from Algorhythms, Pune was selected as it was a modular , user friendly and integrated library management software. XDP paid the cost Rs. 85,000/- through a Mahindra Grant, thanks to Dr. C. Vaman Rao, Vice-Principal for Academic Improvement. Dos 3.0 version of SLIM (System for Library Information and Management) was selected for Library automation after examining several softwares available in market, and in use.The software was installed in March 1999.
Computerisation started with Cataloguing and Serials management and Acquisitions module was used after an year in 2000. Cataloguing data entry of books for retrospective conversion was done from books, and not accession registers, so books lost from the library were not added to the database. We started with one multimedia PC purchased through UGC grant. This PC served as an internet access terminal, for watching CDs, and when it was free from these activities, the Library staff took turns doing data entry of books. Catalogue cards were stopped immediately. Next year another computer was added and an OPAC terminal, a LAN was set up in the Lending Library. By 2003, we were rid of the responsibility of giving internet access, as the Computer Center was set up. The speed of data entry increased with more PCs and exclusive library use. The LAN was extended to the Reference Library by 2005, when every staff member was given an individual PC!!
In the summer of 2005, data entry was taken up on a big scale recruiting paid student help. Three Librarians (Sandhya, Mamta and Smita- the trio was referred as sms) were employed on contract basis exclusively for retrospective conversion of data. With this, the working collection, ie. Books in active circulation and all the accessioned books were entered. Then we turned to the books in the cubicles. The cubicles held cupboards with books merged from the departmental libraries when the Centralised Science Library was created in 1970. These books were accessioned , classified and entered in the database.
In 2006, the software was upgraded to SLIM21-Lx web-enabled version on Post-GreSQL Linux server with Windows front end) The old data in DOS was handed over for data migration in August 2006, and it was returned to us in Dec. 2006. We had to undergo training again to use this changed version of SLIM. The no. of OPACs had grown to four by this time, and the catalogue search is in a web browser. The SLIM circulation module for recording issue return of books was started in 2010.
The OPAC was hosted on the College website in 2010.
In May –June 2017, we migrated from Linux to Windows version of SLIM with a new Lenovo server.
We have more than 1 lakh records ( books, multivolume works, bound vols. of journals , journal articles etc. all properly indexed, classified etc.) in our database, including books in Blatter Herbarium and Heras Library. There are 15 staff terminals,( one in Heras) and 5 OPAC terminals. The OPAC is available on the College website, uploaded periodically by the Knowledge Centre.
Special Collections and Rare Books in the Library
The Wadia and Polson Collections comprise of donated books in the 1950s and are housed in a cubicle. Books on Christianity make up the HR-CC. One cubicle makes up HR-LIT (Books in French, Latin, Spanish etc.) Books in Gujarati, Hindi, and Marathi languages are in the Lending Library. Rare books dating from 18th and 19th century are preserved under lock and key.
The Media-Management books were segregated to form separate sections in Reference Counter, HR, and LL according to instructions from the visiting LIC in 2008.
Teaching, Honours Programme, Library Orientation
An Honours programme in Library Literacy for one transfer credit was started from 2008-2009. It was conducted by the Librarian Ms. Medha Taskar. It was discontinued after completing 5 years as there was no adequate student response at the right time. A Library science course for language disabled students of FYBA is being conducted since 2010 . This is coordinated, taught, evaluated by Ms. Sonali Paradkar against all odds. Systematic Library orientation and tours started in June 2017 after a lot of pleading with College authorities. Earlier, they were being held sporadically on demand from department heads . It is sad that the value of this simple one lecture hour library tour is still not appreciated by some Dept. Heads.
Library databases
N-List, a consortium of e-books and journals was made available from 2010 through the CPE status of the College.
Library Digitisation Project: A Tata Trust grant to the Heras Institute brought us our much coveted Digitisation Project cum Institutional repository in 2016. Ms. Sonali Paradkar was associated in this project with the Heras staff, right from market search, examining available systems, selection and purchase. The final choice was a system from Webgenic Technology Solutions, Pune; comprising of a ScanCraft High Speed Book Scanner : 2 High Resolution NikonD3200 SLR (24 Megapixel) cameras, a flatbed and V shaped cradle for the material to be scanned, a PC and Monitor and 1TB Hard disk and
Webgenic eLibrary Plus server, for cataloguing and access control of documents uploaded. Scanning work started in 2017 and a complete file of College magazine from 1908 till date in digitised format is
available. This server is available on the intranet. The old syllabi, Departmental magazines are next in line.
The Paperback Library was started in 1972, as part of celebrations of the International Book Year it was used a lot for popular reading, the collection was upto 7500 books. It is slowly losing its appeal, and will be dismantled in near future.
The Print Library, started in 1981, was dismantled in May 2007, It had already become dysfunctional, the ornate picture frames were handed over to the College authorities and now they adorn walls of corridors of main building, Staff-Room and other places.
The Librarians
Bernard Anderson May 1945-Oct. 1947. Dr. B. Anderson left to become Asstt. Librarian of the Bombay University Library. He retired as the University Librarian and Head of the Library Science Dept. His contribution to our library is not known.
Dominick Fernandes 16th June 1961-31st Aug. 1997
Medha B. Taskar 1st Sept 1997- till date.
1.A Photograph Album 1914
2.The Jubilee Souvenir of St. Xavier’s College and High School, 1920
3.A Chapter in the history of St Xavier’s College, 1933-1940 :- A presentation volume to Rev. Fr. Gonzalo Palacios de Borao, S.J. Principal 1933-1940 by the staff and students of St. Xavier’s College, Bombay, August 1941
4.St Xavier’s College Centenary Album 1969
5.St Xavier’s College Magazine 1978
6.St Xaviers College Magazine 1994 (125th Anniversary Special Issue)
7.St. Xaviers College Magazine 1997 (College Library is the Cover Feature) The College Library 8-14pp
8. Annual reports of the Library from 2002-2003 till date in College Magazines
9. Old files in the Library
10. Library Staff Musters from 1942-