The foundation of the Library was laid by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in 1875. Since then this library is knowned to be the Best and largest University Library. The library is a seven storied building which is surrunded bt 4.5 acres of land. In 1960 it was inaugurated by late Sh. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru( Prime Minister of India). The library was named as Maulana Azad Library, after the name of the Great educationist and first Education Minister of India i.e Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Thats why this Aligarh Muslim University library is also named as Maulana Azad Library.
The Oriental division of the library comprises of about 2 lakh Printed books and many of the periodicals including about ten thousand items belonging to the Rare categories in Hindi/ Urdu/ Arabic / Persian.
AMU Library (Maulana Azad Library) provides the whole University campus with a great access to the Web-online journal through a well equipped Computer Lab. Now the Digital Resources on many of the subjects are accessible through the Digital Resource Centre which was established in the library in January 2009. All the books in the Library which are issue-able for the students are bar coded for the Automated checking purpose.
About 5000 students, teachers and other members of the University visit the Library daily. The timing of the library is very friendly as it opens for much time so that none sholud face any problem for that, as the timing of the library is from 8.00 a.m. to 2.00 a.m.i.e up-to next day.
