Our Library
Access to fully automated facilities, 1,04,000+ books, 6900+ online journals, 14,000+ e‑newspapers and e‑magazines, and more
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 December 2023, the University Library has a collection of 97,500+ books of which 1,960 are reference materials, and 3,610 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 19 different databases, which include 6900+ online journals, 14,000+ e‑newspapers and e‑magazines, 07 statistical databases, 02 legal databases, 14,000+ 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 10,000+ resources as of 18 Jan 2024. This is a dynamic archive, so new items get uploaded daily. This archive includes various types of resources such as textbooks, curriculums, reports, manuals, catalogues, conference proceedings and so on in 16+ languages available from 17 countries. The repository has witnessed over 1,85,600 downloads and over 12,74,900 views from 152 countries so far.
The team launched the Pushpa Mittra Bhargava Archive on 19 September 2023. Pushpa Mittra Bhargava (1953 – 2017) was an acclaimed Indian scientist and the Founder Director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. This archive contains his notable writings, research papers, correspondence with eminent personalities, rare paintings, postal stamps, matchboxes, mementoes, and other artefacts.
The physical documents can be accessed at the Gulbanoo Premji Library, Sarjapur, Bengaluru. The web-based catalogue can be accessed here:
We are set to launch the Media Archive. This intranet portal contains documents collected by the Centre for Education and Documentation (CED), Mumbai, the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bengaluru, and other civil society repositories on a range of educational and developmental issues. The documents cover a period from 1875 to 2009.
We will soon be launching a repository of reports published by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. This is a growing repository containing reports on a variety of subjects useful to researchers interested in policymaking and socioeconomic development.
The first set of reports on public health is thematically organised by topics such as performance audits of flagship programmes on healthcare services, audits of autonomous institutions, and audits of medical education.
In addition to these archives, the Special Collections also include:
- Books from David Horsburgh, an eminent educationist’s collection
- Books from Jacques Drèze and Martin Ravallion, eminent economists’ collections
- 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
