Museums, Libraries and Archives of India: Exam Notes

The correct answer is B, the Indian Museum, Kolkata. It was founded in 1814 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal and is the oldest museum in India as well as the largest multipurpose museum in the country, with sections for art, archaeology, anthropology, geology, zoology and economic botany. Its first curator was the Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich, who had himself proposed the museum. Option A is wrong because the National Museum at Janpath, New Delhi was founded only in 1949 and moved into its own building in 1960, so it is much younger even though it is the premier museum of the Union Government. Option C is wrong because the Salar Jung Museum at Hyderabad dates from 1951; its distinction is being the largest one-man collection in the world, not the oldest museum. Option D is wrong because the Government Museum, Chennai, founded in 1851, is the second oldest museum in India, not the oldest.

The correct answer is A, Hyderabad. The Salar Jung Museum stands on the south bank of the Musi river at Hyderabad and holds the collection built up mainly by Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, Salar Jung III, the Prime Minister of the Nizam of Hyderabad. It was opened to the public in 1951 and was declared an institution of national importance by the Salar Jung Museum Act, 1961, so it is now administered by a board chaired by the Governor of Telangana. Its best known exhibits are the Veiled Rebecca, a marble sculpture by the Italian artist Giovanni Maria Benzoni, the double statue of Mephistopheles and Margaretta carved from a single block of wood, and a British musical clock. Options B, C and D are wrong because Lucknow has the State Museum in the Banarasi Bagh, Bhopal has the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya and Mysuru has the Jaganmohan Palace art gallery, and none of these is the Salar Jung Museum.

The correct answer is C, Kolkata. The National Library of India stands in the Belvedere Estate at Alipore in Kolkata, in a building that was once the residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. It is the largest library in India by volume of holdings and is the library of record for the country, receiving one copy of every book published in India. It works under the Ministry of Culture. Option A is wrong because Delhi has the Delhi Public Library and the Central Secretariat Library, both important but neither the National Library. Option B is wrong because Chennai has the Connemara Public Library, which is one of the four depository libraries under the Delivery of Books and Newspapers Act but not the National Library. Option D is wrong because Mumbai has the Central Library in the Town Hall, run by the Asiatic Society, which is likewise a depository library only.

The correct answer is B, Lord Curzon. The Imperial Library was created by the Imperial Library Act of 1902 and opened to readers in 1903 on Curzon’s initiative; he merged the collections of the Calcutta Public Library of 1836 with the Home Department secretariat libraries to form a single library of record. After independence the Imperial Library was renamed the National Library in 1948 and was opened at Belvedere in 1953. Option A is wrong because Lord Ripon is remembered for the Local Self Government Resolution of 1882 and for repealing the Vernacular Press Act, not for the library. Option C is wrong because Lord Dalhousie belongs to an earlier period and is associated with the railways, the telegraph and the Doctrine of Lapse. Option D is wrong because Lord Irwin served in the late 1920s and early 1930s, long after the Imperial Library had opened, and is linked with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931.

The correct answer is A, the Imperial Record Department. It was set up at Calcutta in 1891 to bring together the scattered records of the Government of India, shifted to New Delhi after the capital was transferred, and occupied its present building on Janpath, designed by Edwin Lutyens, in 1926. After independence it was renamed the National Archives of India and it is today the largest archival repository in South Asia, working under the Ministry of Culture and headed by the Director General of Archives. Option B is wrong because the Imperial Library was the library of record that became the National Library, a different institution altogether. Options C and D are wrong because no such names were given to the central archival body; a record room is only the office in which a department keeps its current files before they are transferred to the archives under the Public Records Act, 1993.

The correct answer is B, the Delivery of Books and Newspapers (Public Libraries) Act, 1954. It obliges a publisher to deliver one copy of every book published in India to the National Library at Kolkata and one copy each to the Connemara Public Library at Chennai, the Central Library at Mumbai and the Delhi Public Library; these four are the National Depository Libraries. The Act was amended in 1956 to bring newspapers within it. Option A is wrong because the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 deals with the registration of printing presses and the filing of copies with the State Government, not with the depository libraries. Option C is wrong because the Public Records Act, 1993 governs the records of government offices and the National Archives. Option D is wrong because the Copyright Act, 1957 protects the rights of authors and publishers and has nothing to do with legal deposit.

The correct answer is B, 18 May. International Museum Day has been observed on 18 May since 1977 on the announcement of the International Council of Museums, a non-governmental body founded in 1946 with its headquarters at Paris, and each year it carries a theme. Option A is wrong because 18 April is World Heritage Day, also called the International Day for Monuments and Sites, declared by ICOMOS. Option C is wrong because 12 August is National Librarians’ Day in India, observed on the birthday of S. R. Ranganathan, the father of library science in India. Option D is wrong because 14 November is Children’s Day in India and the day on which National Library Week begins, running to 20 November. Candidates lose this question by confusing the museum day with the heritage day, so fix 18 May for museums and 18 April for monuments.

The correct answer is B, Uttar Pradesh. The Rampur Raza Library is at Rampur in western Uttar Pradesh, housed in the Hamid Manzil inside the Rampur fort. It was begun in 1774 by Nawab Faizullah Khan, the first ruler of Rampur, and holds Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Urdu and Turkish manuscripts, Mughal miniatures and an illustrated Valmiki Ramayana in Persian. It has been managed by a board under an Act of Parliament of 1975. Option A is wrong because the great manuscript library of Bihar is the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library at Patna, opened in 1891. Option C is wrong because Rajasthan’s best known collection of this kind is in the City Palace and the Albert Hall Museum at Jaipur. Option D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh has no library of this name; Rampur is clearly a town of Uttar Pradesh.

The correct answer is A, S. R. Ranganathan. Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan, a mathematician who became the first librarian of the University of Madras, is called the father of library science in India. He gave the Five Laws of Library Science in 1931 and devised the Colon Classification, and National Librarians’ Day is observed on 12 August, his birthday. Option B is wrong because Melvil Dewey was the American librarian who devised the Dewey Decimal Classification; he is a founder of modern library science but not of the Indian discipline. Option C is wrong because Raja Rammohun Roy was the social reformer of the Bengal Renaissance; his name is attached to the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation of 1972 because the Foundation honours him, not because he worked in library science. Option D is wrong because Asutosh Mukherjee was an educationist and Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University.

The correct answer is B, Thanjavur. The Thanjavur Maharaja Serfoji’s Saraswathi Mahal Library stands within the Thanjavur palace complex in Tamil Nadu. It began as the royal library of the Nayak rulers, was greatly enlarged by the Maratha ruler Serfoji II in the early nineteenth century and holds palm-leaf and paper manuscripts in Tamil, Sanskrit, Marathi and Telugu on medicine, music, architecture and literature. Option A is wrong because Madurai is known for the Meenakshi Amman temple and the Gandhi Memorial Museum, not for this library. Option C is wrong because Kanchipuram is the city of temples and silk weaving. Option D is wrong because Tiruchirappalli is known for the Rockfort temple and the Srirangam temple island. In exams the library is almost always paired with Thanjavur and with Serfoji II, so remember both names together.

The correct answer is C, Kolkata. The National Council of Science Museums was set up in 1978 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture with its headquarters at Kolkata, and it runs the network of science centres and science cities across the country. Its oldest unit is the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum at Kolkata, which opened in 1959 as India’s first science museum. Option A is wrong because New Delhi has the National Science Centre, a unit of the Council, but not its headquarters. Option B is wrong because Bengaluru has the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, again a unit and not the headquarters. Option D is wrong because Mumbai has the Nehru Science Centre, the largest interactive science centre in India, which is likewise only a unit of the Council. Remember that the unit and the headquarters are different things.