Bahawalpur Central Library

The Bahawalpur Central Library, also known as Sadiq Reading Library, is a library in Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. It was founded on 8 March 1924 by Sir Rufus Daniel Issacs during the coronation year of Sadeq Mohammad Khan V. It cost 100,000 rupees by Bahawalpur State and is the second largest library 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 divided into three sections: Main Hall, children's books section and audio visual archive section.

The library's collection includes older editions of newspapers. It has over 100,000 books, and contains a repository of historic documents related to the state of Bahawalpur and Khwaja Ghulam Farid.