Whispering Shelves - Revisiting the Salar Jung Museum Library at Hyderabad in India

Libraries have always been about book collections, connections through knowledge dissemination and knowledge preservation. Since libraries are of different kinds, it would be interesting to know how a library which is an integral part of a national level museum in India, the Salar Jung Museum at Hyderabad, under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, is serving society over 70 years. This article traces the birth and growth of an iconic library set up by royals, the Salar Jungs, prime ministers from the erstwhile Nizam rule of Hyderabad State (1724 – 1948 A. D) in the Deccan region of India. It also examines how the library has gone from being a private collection to a public library to a ‘special’ library accessible to the public, been a gift to the society it serves and continues into the 21st century.