During Library Week celebrations from 6-11 November, 2019, an excursion for the students of classes XI and XII was undertaken to the Gandhi Library ( part of the National Gandhi Museum opposite Rajghat) on 8 November. Ms Deepa Chugh and Ms Surbhi Anand accompanied the students.
The Gandhi Library has one of the largest collections of books and documents on the Mahatma. It also houses a fairly large collection of books on the freedom movement (1857-1947) and a large section of general literature on the social sciences, humanities, literature and nature cure. Its collection has now grown to about 27,000 titles and 25,000 copies of correspondence letters, both, written and received by Gandhi. There also exist Gandhis own works in about 100 volumes.
The library has separate sections for books in English and in each of the Indian languages-Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, etc. Some books in foreign languages are also available. The books in the library have been divided into two broad sections viz. Gandhiana and General.
[gallery link="file" order="DESC"]The library is a public one where people can access and wide variety of books including rare books. As a rule, the books are not issued to the public. Next to the library is a reading room where our students had the opportunity to browse through several interesting titles. The students enthusiastically looked for letters written by Gandhi to Hitler. Students also looked for books that were typed and not printed.
Students got the opportunity to visit the museum on the first floor. They first visited the Spinning Wheel Gallery which contains 23 models of spinning wheels (charkhas) - from the traditional type to the portable versions like the peti Charkha and the mechanised versions including the Ambar Charkha. They also got to see two models of looms; samples of various components and ancillaries relating to hand spinning; samples of yarn handspun by Gandhiji and other leaders; selected write-ups by Gandhiji and photographs of Gandhiji and other leaders of the time, working on the spinning wheel.
The students then visited the Photo Gallery. This displayed nearly 285 photographs of Mahatma Gandhi in chronological order, divided in ten phases, with write-ups for each phase,from childhood upto his arrival in Delhi in 1947. There were relics of Gandhiji like his spectacles, walking stick, utensils used by him, pens, rosary, microscope etc. Students also viewed a replica of Gandhis living room. His family tree down to his great grandchildren also hung there.
In the Commemorative Gallery, there were photographs of Gandhijis last days at Birla House, his assassination, samples of currency notes and coins with Gandhijis picture on them, a rich collection of stamps on Gandhiji issued by the government from time to time, Gandhijis note on the restructuring of the Congress Party dated 29 January 1948 along with various other interesting memorabilia.
For more pictures......click here.......
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