The history of ceremony of giving home of this public Barton Library of old Bhavnagar State, begins from 30.12.1882. It is also associated with Chhagan Prasad Desai Library. The history of the library activity of Bhavnagar State is attached with Chhagan Prasad Desai Library situated at Voar Bazar, Bhavnagar. At the time of Chhagan Prasad Desai Library was the first in kathiawad and among the Gujar
ati Language area, it was fourth in the rank after Ahmedabad, Surat and Bharuch. Thus, the history of this Library Institute is 144 years old. Sometime Mahatama Gandhiji was a reader of Barton Library too. Mahatma Gandhiji took benefit as a reader of this Barton Library, when this institute was running in its own new constructed building at Navapara in A.D 1882. Today this main building which is near Kaveri Corporation is known as the main building of Majiraj Girls High School. This thing increases the pride of this institute. This library is an intellectual event of Bhavnagar of 19th Centuary. This library was started with a small collection of 5000 books donated by Chhagan Prasad Desai, the pilgrimage of this institute was started in the period of Maharaja Jaswant Sinhji in the year 1860. In the period of Maharaja Krishnakumar Sinhji, the number of books reached to 15980. Now A days the collection of the books reaches to 61,763 in which there are 25,876 Gujarati books, 18,937 English books and 4,741 Hindi as well as 1,253 Sanskrit books. Here the library possesses rare collection of manuscripts too. Today, the readers get benefit of daily Eleven news papers such as English, Gujarati and Hindi languages. The customers who get books everyday from the library are in numbers 1450. Everyday 1000 visitors take benefit of reading Newspapers as well as magazines. With the help of Bhavnagar Municipal Corporation and Excel Crop Care Limited, Barton Library is climbing the steps towards progress. In the year of 1977-78 as well as in the year 1999-2000, this library has got the award of “Motilal Amin” as the best librarian. It is a dream of the whole committee that this library has complete arithmetic information every public institute of this city, Bhavnagar. We also hope to have replicas of the best Indian paintings and the albums of the collection of different libraries. We also hope to arrange the exhibition of paintings, architecture, photography and cinematograph. The committee also hopes to arrange the lectures of the expert artists on the above different subjects. The committee is trying its best to fulfill this dream and to create co-ordination and mutual relation between the books and the arts.
