History

The Research Library and Tomsk State University were opened in the same year, 1888. The founder of the library was Vasily Markovich Florinskiy – physician and writer, organizer of Tomsk University, the first university in Siberia and the Far East, and a trustee of the West Siberian educational district.

Russian philanthropists, scientists, writers, and public figures played a vital role in amassing a vast and unique collection of books in the Research Library. The book collections of G.A. Stroganov, V.A. Zhukovsky, S.M. Golitsyn, A.V. Nikitenko and others were the foundation of the Library stock. The first contribution to the Library was made by Count A.G. Stroganov, who in 1875 gave consent to V.M. Florinskiy, who then served in the Ministry of Public Education and knew about the project to build a university in Siberia, to donate his father’s family library, consisting of 22,626 volumes, to the future university.

August 26, 1880, was marked by the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone of the University. By 1885 the University building had been finished, and in the central part of it an area of about 1,200 square meters was allocated for the Library. In July 1885 the chief librarian S.K. Kuznetsov took up his duties. He was a Candidate of Historical and Philological Sciences and an expert on ancient and modern languages. Books and journals were distributed to make three divisions: foreign, Russian and medical.

In 1912-1914 a separate building in the neoclassic style was built for the Library using a draft by the architect A.D. Kryachkov. It is located in the university grove. Another building was constructed in 1978 using a draft by the architect E.I. Dreizin. It was connected with the old building by two walkways. The total area of the Library is 16,559 square kilometers. In 1934 the Library was awarded the title “Research” for great achievements in developing the library stock and its importance for cultural and research life of Siberia. In 1969 the Library became a methodological center for 54 university libraries of Western Siberia. Tomsk State University, and the Research Library as part of it, was given the status of a Particularly Valuable Object of the Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of the Russian Federation. Currently, the Library holds 3.8 million items, including 126 thousand manuscripts and rare books.

In the framework of the project TEMPUS TACIS T-JEP 10027-95 “Development of the management of the Research Library of Tomsk State University”, 1995-1998, the project leader Professor Judith Marquand (United Kingdom) began computerization of the Library’s processes. The main result of informatization is creation of an integrated library complex, which includes 9 interconnected subsystems of automated library information system and further transformation of the library into an information center. The hardware and software basis for work is a Multifunctional Library Information System VLTS (USA), a local area network with 300 connections, server hardware, and a corporate network - TSUNet.

TSU Research Library is certified to comply with the requirements of the European standards BS EN ISO 9001:2015 in the field of information and library support of educational and research activity (2006, 2009, 2016, 2018), the Library also implemented and is developing a system of quality management.