Saturday 20 September 2014

The British Council Bangladesh has inaugurated their new and refurbished library within the Fuller Road Office in Dhaka. The inaugural ceremony was held on 20 September from 6 to 8pm at the British Council’s Fuller Road premises. 

Honourable Speaker of the Parliament, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury MP was the chief guest at the inauguration. Baroness Prashar, Deputy Chair of British Council and His Excellency Robert W. Gibson, CMG, British High Commissioner to Bangladesh attended the event as special guests and delivered address notes. 

The British Council Library has expanded their services into the digital arena by introducing e-membership facilities and by providing access to on-line information products, a vast collection of over 80,000 e-books and 14,000 e-journals, newspapers and magazines. Members will now be able to gain access to the new e-library from anywhere in the world.  

The British Council library in Dhaka has long been reputed as a cultural centre, an information hub and an activity venue for audiences, members and partners. The new services are also extended to benefit school teachers and administrators, English learners, Higher Education and Education UK faculty, alumni and students, participants of Society and Arts Programmes and regular families in Bangladesh. The new collections reflect British Council’s core priority areas of English, Arts, Education and Society and their resources include publications and enriched material on Professional Development skills. The new library has a wide collection of classical and contemporary English literature, authoritative guides of management, business, IT and the Arts, GCSE and A level text books, DVD collections of films, documentaries, British TV series and more. 

Country Director Brendan McSharry, OBE said: “The opening of our newly refurbished and modernised library in Fuller Road is a fitting marker of the 60th Anniversary of the British Council in Bangladesh. Our new library is bigger and has more books, digital resources and study areas than ever before. It provides quick access to global information and gives an opportunity to meet and network together, and participate in a range of interesting talks and exhibitions.”

Ms. Sarwat Reza, Manager, Library said: “Our new Library in Fuller Road, Dhaka is beginning its journey with a fresh look, enriched resources and improved services, where we focus on creating opportunity for the young audiences of Bangladesh by providing state-of-the-art access to both physical and digital information, creating active networks and communities of interest, and by supporting our core areas of work in cultural relations – English, Arts, Education and Society. We will soon be launching our Chittagong Library in partnership with Chittagong Independent University.

Our libraries will be used as spaces of information and innovation – they will have in-built cafes and Wi-Fi access to help enhance customer privileges. The libraries will be safe and convening places for dialogue, cultural exchange, knowledge etc. experiences which are not readily available in most parts of Bangladesh. In short, these will be cool places for people to hang out at”.

The Library is open 7 days a week, from 10am to 6pm on weekdays (Saturday to Thursday) and from 3pm to 7pm on Fridays. 

Notes to Editor

For further information please contact Head of Marketing and Communications, Arshia Aziz, email: Arshia.Aziz@bd.britishcouncil.org 

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We create international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and build trust between them worldwide.

We work in more than 100 countries and our 7000 staff – including 2000 teachers – work with thousands of professionals and policy makers and millions of young people every year by teaching English, sharing the Arts and delivering education and society programmes.

We are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter. All our work is in pursuit of our charitable purpose and supports prosperity and security for the UK and globally.

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