A Dive into the Special and Rare Collection of the Maulana Azad College Library, Kolkata

Abstract

Maulana Azad College, Kolkata is a premier academic Institution founded in 1924 in British India to encourage Islamic Study. Its library has a rich collection of special and rare documents in different languages. This article discovers the precious rare documents of the Maulana Azad College Library, Kolkata. A few criteria have been fixed to find the rare documents as per the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Guidelines on the Selection of General Collection Materials for Transfer to Special Collections. Questionnaire, interview and the observation method were followed for data collection. This article will help to understand how rich the Maulana Azad College, Kolkata library is, in its rare documents collection and how those rare documents are being preserved. The Guidelines followed to identify the rare books in this article may also help others to get an idea about how to segregate  books as rare and special from the general collection as per the mentioned guidelines.