The University of Peradeniya library is a centrally administered network of libraries in the

University of Peradeniya The University of Peradeniya ( si, පේරාදෙණිය විශ්වවිද්‍යාලය, ta, பேராதனைப் பல்கலைக்கழகம்) is a public university in Sri Lanka, funded by the University ...

, Sri Lanka. It is considered the oldest academic library in Sri Lanka and one of the largest libraries in Sri Lanka today.

History

It was founded as the University College Library in 1921. With the amalgamation of the Ceylon University College and the Ceylon Medical College in 1942 to form the first university in Sri Lanka, the

University of Ceylon The University of Ceylon was the only university in Sri Lanka (earlier Ceylon) from 1942 until 1972. It had several constituent campuses at various locations around Sri Lanka. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972, replaced it with the Unive ...

, University College library became the University of Ceylon library. At the time this transformation occurred, the library contained nearly 30,000 items. The entire facility was moved to

Peradeniya Peradeniya ( si, පේරාදෙණිය, translit=Pēradeniya; ta, பேராதனை, translit=Pērātaṉai) is a suburb of the city of Kandy Kandy ( si, මහනුවර ''Mahanuwara'', ; ta, கண்டி Kandy, ) is a m ...

in 1952, with the establishment of a new seven-story building in the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya campus. The first donation to the library was the valuable and extensive collection on

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

and oriental studies of late Arunachalam Padmanabha donated by his father

Sir ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

Ponnambalam Arunachalam Ponnambalam Arunachalam ( ta, பொன்னம்பலம் அருணாசலம், translit=Poṉṉampalam Aruṇācalam; 14 September 1853 – 9 January 1924) was a Ceylonese civil servant and a member of the Executive Council of Cey ...

. The Vol. 1 of the 11th edition of

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

was given the accession number 1. The University of Peradeniya library has changed its name from time to time as follows: *Library, Ceylon University College (1921 to 1942) *Library, University of Ceylon (1942 to 1952) *Library, University of Ceylon, Peradeniya (1952 to 1972) *Library, Peradeniya Campus, University of Sri Lanka (1972 to 1978) *Library, University of Peradeniya (since 1979) The scholar H. A. I. Goonetilleke served the library as chief librarian from 1971 to 1979 and is largely responsible for its growth.

Main Library

The Main Library is located in a seven-story building at the angle of the Senate Building and the Arts Block of the University of Peradeniya. This library contains nearly 300,000 books as of 2009. It serves primarily the

faculty of Arts A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

. The electronic database of the main library was created in 1992.

Branches

* The Agriculture Library was created in the 1960s and was amalgamated with the Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture in 1980. * The Allied Health Science Library was created for the youngest faculty in the university – the faculty of Allied Health Sciences – in January 2007. * The Dental Library was created in 2008 and is the 9th and the youngest member in the university library network. * The Engineering Library was created in 1964. A new two-story building was granted to the library in 2000. * The Medical Library was established in 1973. It served all three Medical, Veterinary Science and Dental faculties by the 1980s, before they got independent libraries. * The Science Library was established in a new building in 1993. * Veterinary science students were served by the Agriculture Library up to 1973. Thereafter the Vet students were served by the Medical Library up to 1994 till the Veterinary Science library was established in that year. * Mahailuppallama Library

Library statistics

Special collections

As part of its collectionLibrary Collections
/ref> of more than 430 000 volumes, the library contains printed and manuscript material from earlier times. This includes: * Donations from A. Pathmanabha, Charles Batuwantudawe,

Thomas William Rhys Davids Thomas William Rhys Davids (12 May 1843 – 27 December 1922) was an English scholar of the Pāli language and founder of the Pāli Text Society. He took an active part in founding the British Academy and London School for Oriental Studies. ...

, Rev. Rambukwelle Siddhartha, A. C. Sulaiman, Andreas Nell, Lucian Janz, E.J.Thomas,

George Grierson George Allison Grierson (April 11, 1867–October 18, 1931) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1914 to 1922, and was a cabinet minister in the government of Tobias Norris. Grierso ...

, H.R. Hamley, Albert M. Fehring, C.W. Nicholas and George H. Wickramanayake, W. A. Silva, Henry de Mel * Map collection (largest historical

map collection A map collection or map library is a storage facility for maps, usually in a library, archive, or museum, or at a map publisher or public-benefit corporation, and the maps and other cartographic items stored within that facility. Sometimes, ...

in Sri Lanka) * Ceylon Room * Legal Deposit Materials Collection – More than 226,453 publications (excluding newspapers) printed in Sri Lanka and registered in the National Archives Department. * Collection of palm leaf manuscripts – Over 5000

palm-leaf manuscript Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia reportedly dating back to the 5th century BCE. Their use began in South Asia and ...

s, which have been catalogued, accessioned and microfilmed. It is the second largest palm-leaf manuscript collection in Sri Lanka. * Collection of

microfilms Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...

of rare materials (approximately 17,000 items) * Collection of stamps of the world prepared by the journalist and writer Carl A. Muller. * Bound periodical collection (7,000 titles)

Notes

:a. Table 4.1: Number of books and bound volumes of periodicals (pp.71), published in the University of Peradeniya Hand Book 2008. :b. "The oldest academic library in Sri Lanka, founded in 1921 as the university College Library became the University of Ceylon Library in 1942 and was moved to Peradeniya in 1952. Currently it has one of the largest collections in the country, numbering more than 500,000 in volume" – International dictionary of library histories, Volume 1.
p.166
/ref>

References

External links

University of Peradeniya library websiteLibrary catalogue search
*;Branch libraries

{{DEFAULTSORT:University of Peradeniya Library Academic libraries in Sri Lanka Deposit libraries Libraries in Kandy District University of Peradeniya