The unique land of Pondicherry houses endless list of wonders to pause at and enjoy by the tourists visiting this stupendous destination. Bordered by the southeast of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry houses the four enclaves Mahe, Yanam, Karaikal and the Pondicherry town. If you are looking for a place which can give you answers regarding the spiritual salvations of human lives or if you just want to look at the crashing waves of the sea with a listless time to be spent or if you seek to explore the architectural beauty of the city which has wonderfully mingled with the present day lifestyles or if you are a real foodie keen to take trials on multi cuisines and recipes of international nature, then Pondicherry is an ideal destination where you get to experience all the above.

Besides the places to experience and enjoy, Pondicherry has places to nurture the brain as well.

The Romain Rolland Library has been functioning from 1827 and earlier it was accessible only for the Europeans. A decade later, the library was opened to the general public, letting them to get enriched in the French language and know about the cultural values and historic heritage of France.

By the time of 1935, the library had only 25,000 volumes of books and it has undergone an enormous growth and currently around 3,00,000 volumes of books are in the collection of library both in French and English languages, which have been the greatest resource for the learned and learning sections of the society.

The books in the Romain Rolland Library has been categorised into various sections benefitting variety of the members right from children to adults. As per the recent statistics, more than 45,000 adult members are making use of the rich collection of the library and it is amazing to know that more than 2 lakhs volumes of books are taken by the users annually on a returnable basis. To be more precise, on an average, one thousand readers are making use of the facilities like reading room in the library. The library is enjoying the expansion activities regularly giving space to more number of periodicals and books on various genres, thereby offering a greater service to the public.

The Romain Rolland Library has its main focus on the children who are in the age group of 4 to 14. To foster the reading habit among the children, a separate kid’s section is functioning in the library, where more than seven thousand students have become members and make use of the books such as picture books, story books, travel, adventures, classic and books of elementary level. Children make use of the library from 4pm to 7pm on the weekdays and during week- ends and vacation time, from 9 am onwards the library is thronged by the children with a suitable break timing.

Apart from all these general sections, there is a Rare Book section which is also a Reference Section. Research scholars and students not only from India and also from the faraway countries in the West come in search of the rarest collection of more than 15,000 books in this section which help to pursue their research and provide answers for which they have been quenching for all around. Due to the aging of these books, they are slowly becoming difficult to handle and are brittle too. To save the information and data on these books, a separate micro filming section is functioning in the library premises to protect the books for posterity.

Yet another special feature of Romain Rolland Library is the mobile library section. A bus with approximately 8000 books travel to the nearby villages with an aim to make the common man to have the access for the books very easily. People who have the thirst for learning but without any directions can well make use of this mobile library which is a really a convenience at proximity for them and many are benefitted by this initiative.

Romain Rolland Library, an ocean of wisdom and knowledge is a “Must Be Visited” location in Pondicherry.

Timings : Daily: 9:00am - 12:30pm ; 4:00pm - 7:00pm

How To Reach :

Air : From the Chennai International airport, the destination can be reached by traveling along the ECR road covering a distance of 150 kms

Train : From the Pondicherry railway station, the Romain Rolland Library is at a nearby distance of just 1.7km via H.M.Kassim Salai.

Road : The Union Territory of Puducherry has well laid network of roads connecting the major cities in the neighbouring states. The destination can be reached in a hassle free road travel from any of the prominent cities around