On the Joyous Occasion of His Majesty's Birth Anniversary we wish all visitors to our new website Happy Reading! All the staff members of the National Library pledge their Loyalty and Dedication to the Tsa-wa-sum.
Home Library Director's Message

A Message from the Director of The National Library of Bhutan.

On 21st February 2008, the occassion of HM King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck's birth anniversary
and the launch of this updated web-site.

Bhutan 2008
Centenary of our Monarchy &
Coronation of HM the 5th Druk Gyelpo.

As one of the established Centres of Cultural Heritage in the country, it is proper for the National Library of Bhutan to be launching its re-designed and updated website on the 21st February 2008, marking the celebration of His Majesty’s Birth Anniversary.

The National Library takes the honour to announce the following additional features commemorating this event:
  1. Now made bi-lingual in Dzongkha and English.
  2. Enhanced to serve as a gateway to making the National Library catalogue and some of the materials held in its collection accessible on-line.
  3. Additional hyperlinks added to other libraries and online learning resources around the world.
  4. Made available a Dzongkha font and information on configuring computers to display Unicode Dzongkha web pages since all but the most up-to-date computer systems have some technical limitations in this regard.

The National Library has made a beginning in preparing a Dzongkha version of this website. Although it is now put in place much still needs to be done, specially in the areas of the terminology used, since this is one of the first websites ever available in our national language Dzongkha.

Enshrined within some 2000 temples, monasteries and dzongs, Bhutan has one of the largest collections of Buddhist written literature in the world. Efforts are being made by our National Library to document all these written documents throughout the Kingdom under our project “Literary Survey” project. Results of documentation carried out during the last five years reveal the existence of large and rare collections in the country and we have begun to digitize the unique and rare texts found in the course of this survey in order to ensure their preservation. All these written treasures, which will eventually be made available online through this website, will serve as useful sources for research and study for all times to come. The National Library website desires to be an effective gateway to make these materials, part of mankind's cultural heritage, available to researchers.

The website presents hyperlinks to the National Library, the library's collections, as well as hyperlinks to many organizations & related activities within and outside the Kingdom. This website, hence, should now serve as a medium for sharing knowledge and information on the collections of and activities being undertaken by the National Library, as well as material in other world libraries and allied organizations.

It is therefore hoped that this website will serve as an important channel of communication between the National Library and the spectrum of readers from within the country and outside. We urge all readers, particularly the library professionals, to share their views and help to promote the growth of professionalism in our National Library.

Tashi Delek

Dorjee Tshering

Director,
National Library of Bhutan