Bahawalpur Central Library


The Bahawalpur Central Library , also known as Sadiq Reading Library, is a library in Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. The library was founded on 8 March 1924 by Sir Rufus Daniel Issacs during the coronation year of Sadeq Mohammad Khan V. costing 100,000 Rupees by Bahawalpur State and is second largest in the province of Punjab.

Architecture

The library is one of the buildings, built by the Nawabs that was designed in a hybrid Neo-Gothic - Victorian style. Unlike other royal buildings, arches in the library are not multi-foiled, but are instead single-foiled.
A porch wraps around some of the building, and has an octagonal tower with Jali work on its arches, and stylized Victorian scrolls at its base.

Collections

The library is dived into three sections: Main Hall, children's books section and an audio visual archive section. The library also has older editions of newspapers. It has over 1000000 books, and contains a repository of historic documents related to the state of Bahawalpur and of Khwaja Ghulam Farid.