- Founded
- 1827
- Timings
- Morning, and again from late afternoon to evening
- Ideal time needed
- 1 to 2 hours
- Distance from railway station
- About 1.7 km
- Nearest airport
- Chennai International, about 150 km
History
The library was set up in 1827 during French rule and at first only Europeans could use it. It opened to the public about ten years later, giving local readers access to French books and ideas. The collection grew steadily from roughly 25,000 volumes in the 1930s to several lakh today. It now serves tens of thousands of members, lends a very large number of books every year and remains a busy part of daily life in the town, especially for students.
What is inside
- General lending sections for adults, with thousands of registered members
- A busy reading room with newspapers and periodicals
- A children's section with picture books, stories and travel titles
- A rare-books and reference section of over 15,000 volumes, used by scholars from India and abroad
- A microfilming unit that preserves fragile old books
- A mobile library bus that takes books to nearby villages
Visiting tips
Visitors can walk in and use the reading areas; borrowing books needs membership. Rare books are fragile, so access may be supervised, and researchers are often given microfilm copies. The library generally opens in the morning and again from late afternoon into the evening. Allow an hour or two if you want to browse properly. The building is quiet and cool, a welcome break on a hot afternoon, and it sits close to the ashram and the seafront, so it fits easily into a walk around the French Quarter.
How to reach
The library is in the old town, about 1.7 km from Puducherry railway station. Chennai International Airport is roughly 150 km away along the East Coast Road, and buses connect Puducherry with the main cities of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Also nearby
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