Brief Introduction
Tribhuvan University Central Library (TUCL), now considered as the biggest library in Nepal, was established in 1959 A.D. along with the university with the sole purpose of helping the university in attaining her objectives. At the time of its establishment, TUCL had a meager collection of only few hundred books. Ever since then, the collection kept on growing and, by now, after 61 years of its establishment, the collection exceeds 410,000 volumes of documents consisting of books, bound periodicals, theses, audio books and other documents. It’s located at the university’s central campus premises in Kirtipur, at five kilometers distance to the South-west of Kathmandu city.
Its present building was designed by a Swiss architect Mr. Robert Weise and was built in 1967 in cooperation with the Govt. of India. Nearly after two decades and half, an annex building (nearly 3 times bigger than the original one) was constructed considering the increasing number of documents and its ever-growing number of clienteles. Many philanthropists and bibliophiles have contributed to this library to grow into its present size. It is considered as the largest library in the country not only in terms of building/space but also in terms of collection, technical manpower, number of members, daily visitors and mainly the variety of services being rendered.
Library clienteles:
Even though TUCL is an academic library established to support the teaching, study and research needs of the university campus, Kirtipur, it has extended its services beyond the limit of the university campus. Apparently, having no good public libraries in Kathmandu valley and respecting the needs & sentiments of all the concerned, TUCL does also offer memberships even to the general public as well as to the foreigners residing in Nepal. The massive Earthquake that struck Nepal in April/May 2015 had severely affected the library in many ways, however, TUCL has not stopped offering the services to all its members, visitors, the university administration and even to the general public despite the scourge of the Earthquake.