Patha Bhavana Library
The Patha Bhavana was a school (Ashram Vidyalaya ) Tagore founded in 1901 within the Ashrama called ‘Brahmacharya Ashram’. Patha Bhavana is presently a co-educational school for elementary, secondary and higher secondary education.
Patha Bhavana Library (Samindra Sishu Pathagar)
Patha Bhavana Library, as known today, was originally established by Rabindranath Tagore as ‘Ashrama Pathaghar’ at the inception Ashram Vidhyalaya. It was developed and nurtured by Tagore himself by collecting books as donation from various parts of the world during his tour. He also has commissioned writing of books to suit the requirements the school. This library, in fact, was the original form of today’s Visva-Bharati Library Network.
A few years after the creation of Visva-Bhatai University, the Library was split into two (in the middle of 1960’s) as Visva-Bharati Central Library and Patha Bhavana Library (renamed as Samindra Sishu Pathagar).
It is one of the biggest school libraries in India according to the collection. It is an open access system library. At present there are 36,286 books in the collection of the Library. The spacious reading room (83.57 sq.mts) provided in the Library facilitates reading of magazines and other reference books.
Library Collection: As on 15th November 2014
Books: 36,286
Journals: 16
Anandamela (Bengali) monthly
Kishore Gyan Vignan (Bengali) monthly
Kishore Bharati (Bengali) monthly
Desh (Bengali) fortnightly
Suktara (Bengali) monthly
Parasuna (Bengali) monthly
Sandesh (Bengali) monthly
Gyanvichitra (Bengali) monthly
Khela (Bengali) weekly
Science Reporter (English) monthly
Sportstar (English) weekly
TTIS (English) weekly
Sukhigrihokon (Bengali) monthly
Saptahik Bartaman (Bengali) Weekly
Bhraman (Bengali) monthly
Safar (Bengali) monthly
Library Users:
Class II-XII students, teachers, staff members, research scholars, retired staff
Outsiders can use this library with special permission.
Moreover, Library has provision for institutional membership.
Library Services:
Lending Service
Reference Service
On-line Public Access Catalogue (http://14.139.211.2:8380/opac/)
Library Hours
Winter time: 6.45 am – 1.30 pm: Summer time: 6.15 am to 1.30 am
Important Sites:
www.nationalmuseumindia.gov.in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_Britannica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Encyclopedia
Academic Service: The Patha Bhavana Library organises the Library Science course (vocational) for the pre-degree students.
Visva-Bharati Library Network: The Library is part of the Visva-Bharati Library Network and is connected to the Central Library through the campus wide MHRD Wifi. The services that are available to the users through this network are:
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Union catalogue of documents of all libraries in the network (WebOPAC: https://vbu.lsdiscovery.in/home/dashboard),
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Integrated automation through Koha software,
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Access to digital, electronic resources like online journals & databases, e-books, digitised books, theses
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Information services like Newspaper Clipping, CAS, Scholarship update, New Arrivals, Institutional Repository consisting of syllabuses and question papers, IT-enabled services like access to plagiarism detection software (Urkund: http://www.urkund.com ), Single Window Search Engine (Discovery Service: https://vbu.lsdiscovery.in/home/dashboard), Web of Science, JGate+, EndNote etc
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Library Website: Gateway to everything about the Library: https://vblibrarynetwork.in/index.php
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Inter - Library Loan System (DELNET)
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Braille Library Service
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Network e-Newsletter
Others:
Two more libraries function under the Patha Bhavana, though not under the Patha Bhavana Library, like Mrinalini Anada-Pathsala (non-residential nursery school) and Sakha Sangha Library (one of the wings of the Ashram Sammelani) run by the students.