The Library was set up in 1950 with a meagre budget of a few thousand rupees and a generous donation of books and periodicals from Profs M N Saha, P C Mohanty, P N Ghosh, N N Das Gupta, A K Saha, S K Ghosh and others. Indian Science News Association, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science and the National Institutes of Science in India made gifts of periodicals.

Since then the Library has grown steadily in size (now 12970 Sq.ft.) and resources. Its budget, only Rs 50,000 in 1960, went up to Rs 2 lakhs in 1970 and 14 lakhs in the early eighties. It stands at 5 Crore now.

The Library has Libsys 7 (with the Web OPAC) software installed on a Linux platform to help access the Library Databases using any standard browser. On-line access to journals is available to the institute members only. Journal sharing facility exists among a few Libraries in Kolkata. The Library offers its reading room service to the outsiders on appropriate registration.