General Information

..... The library opened the doors  at the 8th of October (26th of September)  1886 as Kharkov public library.

..... 1922 library was  named of writer V.G.Korolenko, and in 1930 was defined  as 'state scientific library'.

..... The eminent scientists, public men such as O.A. Gursky, H.D. Alchevska, D.I. Bagaliy, I.P. Shelkov, M.M. Beketov, M.F. Sumtsov and etc. favoured the creating and development of the library.

 .... Library's building, which is recognized as the monument of architecture,  was build by project of academician of architecture O.M.Beketov in 1898-1901.The library was developed as the  center of native and Russian study of library bibliography and book. Eminent ukrainian library scientists L.B.Havkina, B.O.Borovich worked here.

 Among the innovations suggested by them were:

 The library  is one of the founders of  Ukrainian' memory.  In 1906  was founded Ukrainian department ("Ukrainica"), which  accumulated  literature on different languages about Ukraine, works of Ukrainian writers, studies of local  materials etc. at the public library .

..... After the revolution  1917,  the  acquisitions of library stocks became more systematic. The library got all books printed in the Soviet Union.

..... During the World War II the Library suffered great losses - the library building was destroyed, more than 700 thousand books were lost,  the general catalogue was taken away to Germany.  Registers about library's losses were presented on Nurenberg process as evidence of fashism crimes against culture. 

.....In 1981 a new fourteen-storeyed book depository with a storage space for 4 mln. volumes and an office building were added to the original building.

...... Now the Library takes the 2nd place in our state after the Vernadski National Library as to total holdings which numbers is over 7 million items. The library is the universal deposit library for libraries of the Poltava, Sumy and Kharkiv regions. It is the regional interlibrary loan system for enumered regions. Besides our library is the centre of international book exchange and the centre of microfilming.

...... Among the great number of civic organisations with wich partner relations maintain, are: governmental structures, charitable funds, educational scientific-research institutes, production groups, creative unions, museums, theatres etc.

.....Near 100 foreign organizations from 63 countries are the partners in international book exchange.

.....The Library has important fund of editions in Ukrainian, amount of which is nearly 630 thous., great 50 thous. fund of rare and important editions (XII-XX cent.), manuscripts, among them are documents of world-wide importance, fund of literature in foreign languages, amount of it is over 600 thous. documents on 208 languages. These funds are  a significant research base, source of information for scientists in all branches of knowledge including civic education.

.....The program of automatized information-librarian system is realized. In 1998 the Library was connected up with Internet. The Library has more than 50 computers. There are more then ten databases for the users and electronic catalogue.