[7] The present seven-story building was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India in 1960 and the library was named as Maulana Azad Library, dedicated after a great scholar, educationist, statesman, freedom fighter and the first Education Minister of India, Maulana Azad.

[9] The Library holds an invaluable collection of 15,162 rare manuscripts, one of which written on parchment in Koofi script is claimed to be inscribed by Ali (the fourth Caliph of Islam) 1400 years ago.

[10] Other items in the collection include several farmans (decrees) issued by Mughal rulers (including Babur, Akbar, Shahjahan, Shah Alam, Shah Alamgir, and Aurangzeb);[1] a "shirt" on which the whole Qur'an is inscribed in khafi script; the Ayurved written in Telugu; and works by Bhasa written in Malayalam on palm leaves.

The Oriental Division of Maulana Azad Library consists of about 200,000 printed books and periodicals.

Abul al-Faiz (Faizi), an eminent scholar of Akbar's court translated several Sanskrit works into Persian, such as Mahapurana, Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharat and Lilavati.

Forty-three thousand e-journals have been added to the e-resources of the Library which are accessible on campus-wide Network of the University.