page_title: University of Karachi
section_title: Library system
hierarchical_section_title: University of Karachi / Campus / Library system
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of Department of Commerce (Commerce Building)
context_page_description: The University of Karachi; informally Karachi University or UoK is a public research university located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. Established through a national emergence and a followup of the University of Sindh in Jamshoro, the university was established with a status as "Federal University" in 1951 and designed by the Mohsin Baig as its chief architect.
  With a total student body of 41,000 full-time students and a campus size spanning over 1200 acres, Karachi University is one of the largest university in Pakistan with a distinguished reputation for multi-disciplinary research in science and technology, medical, and social sciences. The university has over 53 Departments and 19 research institutes operating under nine faculties. There are over 893 academics and more than 2500 supporting staff working for the university.
  In 2009, the university was named by now defunct THE-QS World University Rankings for the top 500 universities in the world, while it is ranked by QS ranking's in 2016 as among to the top 250 in Asia and among 701st in the world. In 2019 it was ranked 801st in the world and 251 in Asia.
context_section_description: The University of Karachi's library, known as "Dr. Mahmud Hussain Library", has houses well over 400,000 volumes dating back to the 1600s, for researchers as well as for use by students of advance studies and faculty members.  The library became the depository of the personal book collection of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Established and constructed in 1952, the Dr. Mahmud Hussain Library is an imposing five story and basement structure firmly placed in the center of campus activities.  Teachers from over 100 affiliated colleges frequent the university, along with scholars from 19 research institutions. A loan and resource sharing system exists with other academic entities in the Karachi area. A digital library enables the scholars and students to access online books and journals. 25 librarians, 10 assistant librarians and around 90 nonprofessional staff help maintain the library. The building includes six reading rooms for general purposes and six for research. The International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences has within it the Latif Ebrahim Jamal Science Information Centre which is the national focal point for distance education
  Previously called the Karachi University Library, it was renamed the Dr. Mahmud Hussain Library by unanimous resolution of the Karachi University Syndicate on 12 April 1976— the first death anniversary of Prof. Dr. Mahmud Hussain Khan. Mahmud Hussain served the university's Vice-Chancellor from 1971 to 1975 and the library was named in recognition of his contribution to the teaching of social sciences in Pakistan. Dr. Hussain was the first professor the university appointed to its faculty of International Relations and History. He introduced library science to Pakistan by instituting the Faculty of Journalism and Library Science at the university. He also actively worked to improve the status and pay scales of the library staff to make them at par with the university's other faculty members. The photos show that UoK remains seriously underfunded.
caption: Commerce Building
exif: {"Image DateTime": "2017:08:03 14:10:45", "Image ImageLength": "3200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ImageWidth": "1800", "Image LightSource": "Unknown", "Image MeteringMode": "65535", "Image ExifOffset": "118", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "456", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "256", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "278", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "26124", "EXIF JPEGInterchangeFormat": "148", "EXIF JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "0"}