Fact Check: There are just five public libraries in Lahore
Lahore, in Punjab, is said to have five government-funded libraries, one of which is open to the public, according to widely circulated internet articles. Furthermore, according to the articles, all five libraries were built prior to the division.
The assertion has some truth to it. True, there are just five government-run libraries in Lahore, but only two of them were constructed prior to the 1947 division.
Claim
On March 10, someone posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, “In Lahore, there are just five government-funded libraries, each built before 1947.” “Sadly, all but the Punjab public library are inaccessible.”
The article goes on to say that New York City in the United States has 756 libraries, compared to 561 and 250 libraries in Mumbai and Delhi, India.
The post has received 21,000 views and almost 200 reposts thus far.
Fact
True, there are only five public libraries in Lahore, which has a population of almost 13 million, including one electronic library. Only two of these, though, were founded before 1947.
Three of the five libraries—the Government Punjab Public Library, Quaid-e-Azam Library, and Government Model Town Library—are run by the Punjab government, according to Taufiq Ahmad, the director of public libraries in Punjab.
The province is also in charge of the e-library, which is open to the public every day from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. via the following link:
Muneer Khan, the deputy administrator of the library, has stated that the Evacuee Trust Property Board of the federal government is in charge of managing the fifth public library, the Dyal Singh Trust Library.
Officials went on to say that the Government Punjab Public Library (1884) and the Dyal Singh Trust Library (1908) were the two of the five libraries that were constructed before the division.
The city’s additional libraries were all established in the 1980s.
Ejaz Hussain, the assistant director of the archives and libraries branch of the Punjab government, affirmed this as well.
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