The Academy’s library is an extension of the personal library-cum-museum of Prof. Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, who started collecting rarities since 1960s. After the establishment of Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences in 2000, the library and museum on History of Medicine & Science and Museum on Arts, Culture & Orientalism have now become a part of the academy.
The Academy is accredited as Centre of Excellence by Ministry of AYUSH, Govt. of India in 2008. Besides two halls of museum with some rare artefacts; the academy has an extensive and exclusive collection of more than 30 thousand books, 20 thousand journals, 1 thousand hand-written manuscripts, original hand-written medical folios, paintings, etc.
The library of IAMMS at present houses over 25000 books and back volumes of journals and has access to over hundreds of medical journals. Thesis, Institutional Reports, Staff Publications, CD ROMs, Video Cassettes are the other resources available to all Scientific Community. The library has initiated the digitization activities. It has plans to digitize its collection and introduce enhanced electronic information services in the coming years. The library has also one of the most precious and valuable collections of manuscripts, special numbers of magazine, paintings, postal stamps, coins and specimens of oriental calligraphy. The collection is now being raised. Many scholars and generous contributors are now furnishing the library with books, periodicals and rare novelties.
The Library has several thousand books in many languages like Arabic/ Persian/ Urdu/ Sanskrit/ Hindi/ and English, on a variety of subjects like History of Medicine and Sciences, Unani/ Islamic Medicine, Ilmul Advia (Pharmacology), Religion, Urdu Literature with special reference to Ghalib, Aligarh and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, besides thousands of bound volumes of periodicals. The library consists of over 500 manuscripts. Most of the manuscripts are very rare and some are unique.
Some distinctions of the libray are as follows:
National Institute of Health (NIH) of the United States of America has prepared a Directory of Libraries of History Medicine of the world and Ibn Sina Academy is the only name appeared from India in its Directory. Thus the name of India is being representing by Ibn Sina Academy .
Large number of research students and teachers from India and abroad visit and make use of the library to surveys and literature reviews in the fields of History, Unani medicine and languages like Persian and Arabic etc. Two American scholars on Full Bright Scholarship came to the Academy for survey of the literature pertaining to classical periodicals/magazines that is otherwise unavailable at any of the existing libraries in the world.
The research material on Unani medicine is so extensive that scholars from abroad viz., Germany, England, Canada, USA and other Gulf countries come to refer the extensive literature on the subjects.
Ibn Sina Academy is also an Academic Institution and Research Center. Researchers make use of the literature and facilities for their thesis and primary source material.
An exhaustive collection of books on the famous Urdu Poet Ghalib resulted in the creation of a Ghalib Study Centre, which has the world’s largest collection on Ghalib.
Academy also publishes books on subjects relating to the different subjects especially Unani Medicine and so far more than 40 books have been published by the Academy in the last 17 years. Editing and writing of books is time consuming and hard work, but the Academy is carrying on its mission and doing the academic work on a continuous basis.
Academic works available in the Academy are made use of by people from all over the country. Students preparing for various competitive examinations utilize the reading rooms of the library located in the academy to study in a peaceful, academic atmosphere.
Abu Ali Ibn Sina is a well-known personality among the physicians of Unani medicine and scientists of physical sciences since medieval times. To commemorate and to institutionalize an academy named after him, Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine & Sciences was founded on March 1, 2000. The Academy has been registered under Indian Trusts Act, 1882 and was formally inaugurated on April 20, 2001. Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India gave accreditation to the academy in 2004 and promoted it as ‘Centre of Excellence’ in 2008. The Academy is now a non-governmental, non-political and non-profit organization with multiple aims and objectives.
