Fact-check: Lahore has only five public libraries

Widespread online posts claim that Punjab’s city Lahore has five government-funded libraries, with one accessible to the public. The posts also allege that all five libraries were constructed before the partition.

The claim is partially true. Lahore does indeed have only five government-operated libraries, but only two were built before the partition in 1947.

Claim

“In Lahore, there are just five government-funded libraries, each built before 1947,” wrote a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, on March 10, “Sadly, none are accessible to all except the Punjab public library.”

The post further adds that the Indian cities of Mumbai and Delhi have 561 and 250 libraries respectively, while the United States’ New York has 756 libraries.

To date, the post has racked in 21,000 views and nearly 200 reposts.

Fact

It is true that Lahore, with a population of over 13 million, has access to only five public libraries, including an electronic library. However, only two of these were established prior to 1947.

According to Taufiq Ahmad, the director of public libraries in Punjab, three of the five libraries are managed by the Punjab government: the Government Punjab Public Library, Quaid-e-Azam Library and Government Model Town Library.

The e-library also falls under the jurisdiction of the provincial government and is accessible to the public daily from 9 am to 8 pm through the following link:

The fifth public library, Dyal Singh Trust Library, is administered by the federal government’s Evacuee Trust Property Board, as confirmed by Muneer Khan, the deputy administrator of the library.

Officials further added that two out of five libraries were built prior to the partition, therefore the Dyal Singh Trust Library in 1908 and the Government Punjab Public Library in 1884.

All other libraries in the city were set up in the 1980s.

This was also confirmed by Ejaz Hussain, the assistant director at the Punjab government’s archives and libraries wing.

Talking about the accessibility of the libraries, Hussain explained that the Quaid-e-Azam Library required its members to be graduates. But there was no criteria as such for the other public libraries in Lahore, which could be accessed by anyone.

With additional reporting by Fayyaz Hussain.

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