“I was very happy with the huge collection of resources like books and journals that I found in the ICRC Resource Centre. They were very helpful in assisting me to complete my law school projects and preparing for articles and seminar papers,” wrote Tripti Dhar in the feedback form after visiting the Resource Centre at the Regional Delegation of the ICRC in New Delhi recently. Tripti is just one of the hundreds of students who utilise the facility housed in the ICRC’s regional delegation in New Delhi every year.

The Centre was started with a few publications, more than 20 years ago, but has undergone a gradual transformation to a full-fledged library facility with more than 2500 publications. It has a special focus on the history of the Red Cross movement, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the challenges of humanitarian work and issues of humanitarian concern in war, and the history and development of armed conflict.

Sunita Chatterjee has been in charge of the Centre for the past 20 years. According to her, “initially, all that we had were about 200 publications specifically on IHL and International Human Rights Law (IHRL). But over the years we have diversified our reach and now have a large number of publications covering security, international affairs, socio-political issues, among others.” Explaining how the Centre has become attractive to researchers and academics, she says that, “from hardly one or two visitors in 1997, we have come a long way. Now more than 300 students and researchers visit us every year. It is very encouraging to see some of the students who have frequently visited our facility and are currently even writing books on the subject.” The centre, which is open during office hours on weekdays, also houses publications on other topics such as international criminal law, human rights, weapons, detention, refugees and displaced persons. It also stocks audio-visuals materials for reference purposes.

The Resource Centre has a flexible user-friendly system and is one of the specialised libraries for conducting research in the field of international law. Though patrons cannot take publications away, they are adequately assisted to make photo copies of articles if need be. According to Arushi C, one of the students who has been a frequent visitor, “researchers are made to feel very comfortable and are provided with adequate assistance if need be which is many a times missing in other libraries.”

In line with the growing inclination to seek information online, the centre recently developed an online platform thereby enabling patrons to simultaneously search multiple online resources. “Researchers can now access our Resource Centre at www.icrcndresourcecentre.org and benefit from existing publications from any part of the world. Those who cannot physically come there now have a choice,” concluded Sunita.