Library

ARCHBISHOP LOUIS MATHIAS LIBRARY

"TO GROW IN KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM"

Introduction

Sacred Heart Seminary, an institution of the Archdiocese of Madras-Mylapore is an ancient sanctuary of formation. This seminary was inaugurated on 8 September 1936, the Birthday of Our Blessed Mother, by the Visionary Archbishop Louis Matthias. This seminary has been serving the Universal Church and the Local Church of India for the past eighty years. The students at the seminary are prepared to read the signs of the times and to creatively respond to the situations of life, thereby, partnering with God to evolve a transformed society that would be rooted in love, justice and peace. The library is a great structure that provides space for students to enhance the four dimensions of formation and to expand their intellectual pursuits.

Archbishop Louis Matthias Library

The library is named after Archbishop Louis Matthias, our founding father, as an enduring tribute to him. ALM library is a storehouse of knowledge and information for seminarians, staff, scholars and all those who have the quest for learning. This library was blessed and opened by Cardinal D. S. Lourdusamy on 26 November 1978. The resources of the library is available also to the students from various other institutions and lay persons who desire to enrich their knowledge.

The library has got a stock of forty-six thousand, five hundred and thirty-four (46,534) books and more than one lakh twenty thousand (1,20,000) articles. The library subscribes to more than two hundred periodicals. The collection of books at the library includes subjects like Philosophy, Theology, Psychology, General Knowledge, Social Sciences, History Literature, Fine Arts, and Technology. The books are arranged according to the Dewey decimal classification. The books at the library are predominantly in English. However, we also have books in Italian, French, Latin, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Strenuous efforts are taken to upgrade the library. We pay delicate attention to maintain the sanctity of the library and to create an ambience for study and research.

The Facilities

The library has the basic infrastructure that supports the intellectual quest of the students.

• A building with good ventilation, surrounded by trees

• Teak wood chairs and tables for comfortable reading

• Computers for browsing

• Photocopying facility

• Catalogue card cabinets for journals and books

• A team of library staff to assist and guide the students

• The head librarian is always available to render service

• A team of support staff pay attention to the cleanliness at the library

The Location of Books and Journals

• On entering the library, one will find the Current Journals’ Section at the right side. It contains the latest issues of nearly two hundred periodicals.

• The Computer Cabin, two Office Rooms, the New Arrivals’ Shelf, and the Book Issue Counter is situated adjacent to the Current Journals’ Section.

• The door at the centre of the library hall leads to the Stack Room in the ground floor. The books available in the stack room are the main holdings of the library.

• The door on the left side of the library hall leads to the Reference Section where the Encyclopaedias, Main Collections and Common Reference Books are kept.

• The books recommended by the respective professors as reading materials are available on a separate shelf under the title ‘Text Books’.

• The stairs in the Reference Section lead to the Bound Journals’ Section. It contains the bound journals, as well as card cabinets of journal articles. These cards are arranged in an alphabetical order. One can easily trace out the desired themes and related articles with the help of the computer.

80th Anniversary Initiatives

The library is an outstanding monument of the seminary. This library had been severely during the floods in December 2015, which shocked the city of Chennai. We take small and significant efforts to renovate the library so that the resources of the library may be available to the staff, students and scholars for generations to come.