The B C Roy Hall Library is unique among all the Hall libraries of
the IIT Campus, as instead of storing text or reference books related
to a particular engineering or science subjects, it contains books
which can be read for recreational and non academic purposes by the
research scholars of the Hall. In the highly stressed research environment,
reading books in spare time provides not only relaxation but also broadens
the mind and make us a better human being. Understandably the Hall library
occupies a very important position in the overall Hall activities and
each year a substantial amount of money is made available for extension
and maintenance of the library. Though the exact date of the opening of the
library is unavailable, it must have started very early in the history of
our hall, and over the years it has grown into a substantial collection
of books in different languages. Obviously English being the
institutional language has the largest number of books followed by
Bengali, Hindi, Oriaya, Telegu and Tamil. Apart from the fictions, there
is also good number of biographies and autobiographies, travelogues,
poetry books and off course the full collection of Tintin and Asterix.
The collection of Bengali books is really good, with almost all
the major works by contemporary as well as most famous 20th century
writers. Earlier the library had a good music collections in the form of
LP records and cassettes. But in this age of internet and free downloads
of mp3 music files, the demand for issue of these things have reduced
drastically. The hall library does not have any full or part time
librarian but is maintained by a Library secretary, who is elected each
year along with the other members of the hall council.