Jaffna Public Library

Jaffna Public Library

Jaffna Public Library (Tamil: யாழ் பொது நூலகம்; Sinhala: යාපනය මහජන පුස්තකාලය) is located near the Ancient Fort in Jaffna , Sri Lanka. History The library was established as the private collection of the scholar K.M. Chellapha, who began lending books from his home in 1933 (Knuth, 2006). In 1934, a committee set up a formal library, with Chellapha as the secretary and initially, there were about 1000 books, newspapers, and journals kept in a single room (Knuth, 2006). Subsequently, this collection was shifted into a building on Jaffna’s main street and was opened to subscribers (Knuth, 2006). With the popularity the library gained, a new major building was built and opened in 1959 (Knuth, 2006). It was among the biggest libraries in Asia during the early 1980s with its entire collection of around 97,000 books and with centuries-old manuscripts (Chandrasekar & Sivathaasan, 2016). The collection became well-known internationally and was popular among Sinhalese and Tamil intellectuals, …