British Council Library First Floor, Connaught Place is a study library in Connaught Place, New Delhi, Delhi. It is around 0.39 km from Barakhambha Road metro station.
Based on 54 reviews
My last day is 16/4/26 but yesterday I received my Pre-intermediate level certificate today and I can only say that I really enjoyed the British Council. I talked to a lot of people like lawyers, Engineers and some from other countries too, like Thailand and Koreans. First time I saw christian and his name is mathew and As a Indian this is the first time I have seen people from the North East and some of them are British Council 's teachers too I am not sure but there is a teacher who is from Nagaland, maybe she is Shimrawon Duidang ma'am. One day I will do upper-intermediate level and I meet my favorite teachers like Navdeep Kaur ma'am & John Sequeira sir and I will always miss the British Council 😭
My experience with the British Council Library in New Delhi has been extremely disappointing and frankly embarrassing for an institution that claims to represent international standards. The rules here seem to change depending on who you are. I was stopped from eating home food in the cafeteria area because it is supposedly “not allowed.” However, a girl sitting right next to me was clearly eating outside food. When I pointed this out, the staff casually said she was “someone from the staff’s child.” So apparently the rules apply strictly to paying members but not to people connected to the staff. cafeteria food is also horrible and overpriced, with staff pushing passive aggressively to buy stuffs... which, I do agree is right since it's such a space, but the food is horrible and staffs are rude. They bring in people with the library service but don't even have space availability elsewhere to sit, nor do they have any empathy towards the people who are literally paying to be there.This kind of favoritism and double standard is highly unprofessional.The communication among the staff is also extremely poor. I was told a day before that although the library would remain closed until 2 PM, the outside seating area would still be accessible. When I arrived at 10 AM, I was suddenly told that the outside area could not be accessed either. If the staff themselves are not clear about basic information, how are members expected to plan their visits?What makes this even more ironic is that the British Council actively sells English communication and professional development courses, yet the staff demonstrate poor communication, inconsistent instructions, and a dismissive attitude toward paying members.Another frustrating experience was when I briefly sat inside one of the classrooms just to charge my phone, as I travel from far to reach the library,The front desk executive immediately told me that members are not allowed to use the classrooms. However, what is disturbing is that on most days I see the same front desk staff themselves occupying those classrooms just to sit, chat, giggle among themselves, and charge their laptops,even when they have offices on two floors. These classrooms occupy more than half of the library space, yet paying members are told they cannot use them even for something as basic as charging a phone, while staff freely use them for casual conversations. This gives the clear impression that facilities are reserved for staff convenience rather than member benefit.For an organisation that promotes itself as a prestigious global institution, the reality here reflects mismanagement, poor coordination, favoritism, and lack of accountability at the front desk level. Paying members deserve better treatment and clearer policies. The management seriously needs to review and improve the conduct and professionalism of the front desk staff, because the current experience does not reflect the reputation that the British Council claims to uphold. They don't have proper complaint or customer service portals when I mailed the head librarian, they just made a call once and didn't do anything to resolve the issue so my advice would be not to waste money by even giving a single penny to this institution.
Doesn’t have a parking of its own , either you have to go for 1000₹ paas per month or pay 20₹ per hour (2 wheeler) Doesn’t even have an unlimited WiFi , they provide you with 250mb internet only and that is very slow. Our own internet goes slow in premium library. Timings are only from 10-6 where Sunday is also an off here. I can assure if any one would take library anywhere else in the city it would not cost him more than 1500 per month but me paying here 5000₹ for 3 months + 1000₹ parking pass per month and my own internet which I recharge on daily basis for extra net
Visited British council library after ages. It’s a Nice clean quiet building. Library is on the first floor. As a visitor you can visit and check out the library and it’s book for 30 minutes. You need to take out a token from the token machine and then you can go inside of the library. I couldn’t find lot of books. There are lot many in fiction. The book collection needs to be looked at. People were reading or doing their work. You can take your laptop too. On One side is the kids area and kids books. There are information kiosks as well for inquiring on books and titles. You can get information on the library membership and other courses from their website or from the team sitting outside the library. Annual Library Membership is for Rs 2200. British council and the library organised various courses and activities for kids too. English speaking etc Then there are courses for adults Master trainer course for preparing students for IELTS is also available. It runs in 2 parts. Part 1 is for 18 hrs runs for 3 days * 6 hours. Charges Rs 16000 for online & Rs 18000 for offline. Then there is part 2 on the same lines. Once you get certified you can have students prepare for IELTS and charge for it. There is a written and oral assessment before joining the course. Library is open from 10 am to 6 pm Monday to Saturday.
This is a good option if one wants to explore libraries to study on their own in delhi. I visited this on a Saturday morning and found it a bit crowdy. This is probably due to the fact that there are a lot of parents and kids their on weekends there for taking counselling for courses.
