The IIHS Library is central to the institution’s mission to build a world-class research, knowledge and teaching hub focused on India’s urbanisation that also draws upon processes from across the world. It aims to build a specialised interdisciplinary collection on various aspects relevant to the urban transition in India and in other developing countries. India’s higher education system currently has no professional programme built around interdisciplinary skills, or of the scale to educate enough learners who can play the role of change-managers in Indian cities. Consequently, the collection being built out to support the work of the proposed IIHS IOE is unique in the Indian context.
Located at the Bengaluru City Campus, the IIHS Library is a repository of over 42,000 books including 11,200 ebooks, 60 academic journals and magazines, besides 1,300 audio-visual materials and data, 720 cartographic materials, 870 bound volumes of back journals, and 75 case studies. The library has an external library membership at British Council Library. Besides this, a relatively small collection is being developed and maintained at IIHS’ Delhi and Chennai offices.
The IIHS Library also houses a Data Library that accesses and archives the most up-to-date socio-economic data available in India related to urbanisation. In addition to archiving and publishing data from public data sources such as the Census and NSS, the Data Library also subscribes to a number of databases such as the CapEx, IndiaStat, EPW Research Foundation – India Time Series and Manupatra.
Through a series of thematic monthly exhibitions of books, maps, and movies, and public events such as book launches and talks, the Library furthers its core knowledge functions at IIHS and in the wider community. The Library provides a range of services including reference services, research and teaching support, and circulation services. Equipped with computers for users’ access and teaching aids such as EndNote, Mendeley, STATA and Turnitin, the IIHS Library supports the research and teaching needs of the faculty and learners through a range of services.
The proposed IIHS IOE Library aims to build the largest reference library on urbanisation in the Global South. It seeks to do this by developing an interdisciplinary collection using the latest technology, and by making it publicly accessible. The collections will be rooted in the Indian and South Asian context while representing the best of global knowledge.
