East-Kazakhstan Oblast Pushkin Library is one of the oldest in Kazakhstan. On March 20, 1986 in the spirit of the Ust-Kamenogorsk Duma members, sent into exile by the government from central cities of Russia, E. Mikhaelis, O. Kostyurin, A. Fedorov a free Library-reading hall was established. Book collection mostly consisted of city intelligentsia and political exiles’ private books, who apart from the books contributed money to replenish the collection.
The first librarian -public man was P.P. Stolbov, who worked as an accountant in oblast Commercial bank office. The library was situated in the town council, then it was transferred into the National House (today the Oblast Dramatic theatre named after Zhambyl). By the end of 1898, i.e. two years after the Library was established, the book collection included 830 books, 384 issues of 33 titles and 428 customers. Now the Library is a large information and cultural center in this region. Among its customers were such well-known persons as Pavel Bazhov, Alexander Volkov, Nikolai Petrovsky, author of the famous “Dictionary of Russian names”, E. Permitin, an outstanding Soviet writer, G. Grebenshchikov, a Siberian writer who emigrated afterwards, oldest Kazakhstan writer N. Anov, writers of our region- I. Kuznetsov, D. Cherepanov, K.Kaisenov, M. Chistyakov and others. During and after Great Patriotic War the library was transferred many times from one building to another, but library doors were constantly open for readers. On December, 29, 1983 the library gained its constant place in a new building in the town center, where it is situated up to now. At present our book collection includes about 400 thousand items. Readers have an opportunity to use all achievements of information technology, media and Internet resources, literature in foreign languages, big collection of encyclopedias, reference-books and dictionaries. We actively collaborate with the USA, France and Germany Embassies, the Institute of Open Society, the International Foundation “Eurasia”, “Soros Kazakhstan” and etc. Our library is the main informational and cultural center in the East Kazakhstan Oblast. Through its history the Library has witnessed a lot, but whatever happens there is always friendly, optimistic and creative atmosphere inside the Library.
|