In 1920, the library boasts of a collection; of 4964 books. The Library was shifted to a tiled building in the North eastern corner of the present Maharaja’s college premises.
While the library was located in this building an effort was made to construct a suitable building to house it, and amounts were collected for this purpose, but the government of Cochin offered to give suitable accommodation for the library.
Maharaja’s college
In 1922, the town hall building was constructed. One floor of the building was given to the library, and the other floor was utilized as the legislative Assembly.
Town hall
After the formation of the State of Travancore, Cochin, The building was needed for housing the Law College.The library was again shifted, this time to the building belonging to the Chandini Company near the BTH which was then in charge of electrical supply in Ernakulam.
Chandini Company building
When the chandini Company was taken over by the Kerala Electricity Board, and they wanted the building, the library was again shifted, this time to the Ravi Varma Mandhir, on T.D.Road.These constant shifting every adversely affected the stock of books. Many of the older books which were in a bad condition could not be repaired and were lost to the library. Many others were lost in transit. Other books were in bad shape and had to be rebound to make them fit for lending.
Ravi varma Mandir
In 1970 when the Centenary was celebrated, we had a total of 750 members, inclusive of 3 life members, and 180 first class members, 260 Second Class Members and 307 Subscribers. The total number of books we had included 14189 English 7348 Malayalam and 353 Hindi books. We had also 10240 books belonging to the Distributing library which was a separate section under the government but managed by us. The space available in the Ravi varma mandhir was quite inadequate, and we had no means of increasing accommodation, as the land and buildings belonged to the Government. The government was therefore approached for providing us with suitable land for the construction, the most suitable being of course the land occupied by the Ravi Varma Mandhir. The Government finally passed an order on July 25, 1970 sanctioning 45 cents of land on which the Ravi Varma Mandhir stood to be given to the Ernakulam Public Library. The land was actually handed over to the library only nearly two years later.
Plan for a suitable building was then made. The Plans were made with certain goals in view. The construction had to be undertaken without demolishing the old building, so that the Library could work satisfactorily while the construction of the new building was in progress. Again the construction had to be taken up in stages as finances became available. After completion of the northern block which was first taken up, it should be possible to demolish the old building and take up construction for the southern block.
The foundation stone of the new building was laid by Sri.C.Achutha Menon, the then chief Minister of Kerala. The ground and first floors were completed on 28-2-1974, and the library was shifted to the first floor on 3-3-’74, the inauguration being again performed by shri. C. Achutha Menon. The second floor was completed on 19-1-77, and the members room and general reading room, the ladies and children’s room and managing committee room where shifted to that floor, the inauguration being performed by His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Parakkattil. One thing that has to be mentioned here is that the construction could be taken up mainly on account of the help received from Sri. S.Krishna Kumar, the then District Collector of Ernakulam.
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