The Azim Premji University library is a part of the Azim Premji Foundation libraries network around the country. Through our collections, programmes, and services in both physical and virtual spaces, our library network is committed to supporting academic and research work, community outreach, advocacy, learning, and knowledge production and dissemination activities of all our library users.

Our University Library aims to serve the teaching and research needs of our University community. It serves all students and active members of the Foundation and its partners: at the University, Field Institutes and Philanthropy. 

Faculty and students of the University can access resources in other Azim Premji Foundation libraries at all our State, District and Block level libraries and in our Teacher and Community Learning Centres over and above the physical resources in the University library.

We welcome registered external membership by individuals, organisations and University partners who are scholars, researchers and activists working on focus areas of the University’s work.

Collections

At the University library, we are developing a comprehensive collection of print, data, digital and media resources to fulfil the teaching and research needs of the University. This is housed within 43,837 square feet of the library building on campus. 

The collection includes books recommended by faculty and students, and special, curated collections acquired from individuals and institutions. As of May 2022, the University Library has a collection of 95,000+ books of which 1,305 are reference materials, and 3,435 are audio-visual (AV) resources.

Technology enablement

Azim Premji University Library is fully automated with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for smooth transactions of resources. Users can borrow and return resources using a self-check Kiosk machine during library hours, without staff intervention. This facility helps users to borrow/​return resources beyond class hours.

The University library provides e‑resources to users via on-campus and off-campus access with user-friendly tools and applications to access e‑resources and databases.

Currently, the University library has subscribed to 18 different databases, which include 3,940+ online journals, 12,000+ e‑newspapers and e‑magazines, 08 statistical databases, 02 Legal databases, 3,160+ e‑books and a Discovery platform with access to 58,817 e‑journals among others.

Our library network with external institutions

The University library has institutional membership arrangements with other organisations for inter-library loans of books and articles- DELNET (Developing Library Network), New Delhi, Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-Bangalore) and Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bengaluru.

Special Collections and Archives

The library has been working on developing archives and special collections. The team launched the Schoolbooks Archive on 15 November 2021. It is an open-access, multimodal, collaborative, and international archive of schoolbooks and artefacts related to school education to facilitate its effective usage by a diverse set of users such as school teachers, schoolbook writers, curriculum developers, illustrators, editors, printers, publishers, historians, and education researchers. 

The Schoolbooks Archive has over 7,900 resources as on 15 July 2022 and this collection is being added to, daily. The repository includes various types of resources such as textbooks, curriculums, reports, manuals, catalogues, conference proceedings and so on in 15+ languages available from 17 countries. The repository has witnessed 38,000 downloads and 2,74,000 views from 119 countries so far.

The team is currently working on two archives of curated newspaper clippings sourced from the Centre for Education and Documentation (CED), Mumbai and the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bengaluru. 

An archive of relevant materials from the collection of Dr. Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, an eminent scientist, writer, and administrator can be found here. 

Special collections of donated physical materials include:

• The P M Bhargava collection with his notable works, research papers, correspondence with eminent personalities, rare paintings, postal stamps, matchboxes, mementoes, and other artefacts.
• Books from David Horsburgh, an eminent educationist’s collection
• Books from Duleep Mathai, Dr H M Patel, Nandlal Sawhney, Kausar Kabir and many other collectors of resources of historical and academic relevance.

You can find our extensive collection here.

The library welcomes donations and purchases of curated collections of value to its users to add to its collections. Individuals and organisations interested in connecting with us for this are requested to email us at library@​apu.​edu.​in

Users can email requests to refdesk@​azimpremjifoundation.​org for queries about the material you cannot find in the library but which can be sourced from our Knowledge networks globally.

Contact us at library@​apu.​edu.​in

Know more about our Schoolbooks Archive