The Physical Research Laboratory, regarded as the cradle of Space Sciences in the country, was founded by Dr. Vikram A. Sarabhai in 1947.  Scientists and  scientific activities of the Laboratory have received critical national and international acclaim which has carved a niche for PRL among the global scientific community. Over the past 60 years, PRL has been fulfilling its mandate to promote fundamental physics, atmospheric physics, astrophysics, geophysics and other allied subjects.

PRL Library

There are three libraries under the umbrella of PRL Library - the Main Library and Thaltej Library at Ahmedabad and USO Library at Udaipur. 

PRL library has a rich collection of about 55,000 documents including books, bound volumes of journals & reports and about 900 videos/CDs.  PRL Library's electronic resources include access to Elsevier journals through Science Direct, IOP Archive, PROLA (Physical Review Online Archive) and GSA (Geological Society of America) Archive.  PRL Library is well equipped with high tech infrastructure like RFID security system, CD server, Automated Library Management System (Libsys).

PRL library has always tried to keep pace with the state-of-the-art developments in information technology as for example in-house library automation in PRL started in late sixties, Retrospective Literature service using INSPEC database was started in 1989, SDI service using Current Contents was started in 1990, Libsys software was bought in 1996, subscription to Science Direct started from 2001, subscription of other E-journals started from 2002, E-books were bought in 2005, CD-server was bought in 2006, RFID system for library security has been installed since 2007.