This library, named after one of the founders and first president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, is the largest library in Ukraine in terms of collection volume and area of premises, the main scientific and information center of the state, a research institute of the department of history, philosophy and law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. It is one of the twenty largest national libraries in the world. Founded on August 2, 1918 as the national library of the Ukrainian state. Since 1923, the library began to receive 2 legal copies of printed works of the Ukrainian SSR, on the basis of which the creation of a fund of archival copies of printed works of the Ukrainian SSR began.
In August 1941, the library was evacuated to the capital of Bashkiria, Ufa, where a reading room with an open access collection was opened on the premises of the State Pedagogical Institute. In May 1944, the library returned to Kyiv. During a fire in 1964, almost the entire Ukrainian fund and the department of early printed books, the entire Ukrainian library – approximately 600,000 books and manuscripts – burned down. In 1980, the library’s holdings totaled over 10,000,000 titles, including 516 incunabula, about 300,000 manuscripts, and over 6,500 books in Church Slavonic script of the 15th-16th centuries. The most complete collection of sets of newspapers and magazines in Ukraine (over 119,000).
At present, the size of the funds is about 16,000,000 storage units. This is a unique collection of information sources, including books, periodicals and serial publications, maps, sheet music, prints, reproductions and other works of art, manuscripts, early printed books, archives of historical newspapers, documents on non-traditional media. The library has the most complete collection of monuments of Slavic writing and handwritten books in Ukraine, autographs and personal archives of prominent figures of Ukrainian and world science and culture. The components of the funds are the library and archival collection “Fund of the Presidents of Ukraine”, an archival copy of Ukrainian press works since 1917, the archival fund of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Since 1998, targeted acquisition of electronic documents has been carried out, and since 2005, archiving of scientific and information resources on the Internet has been carried out.
Every year, the funds receive 160-180,000 documents (books, magazines, newspapers, etc.). The library is equipped with all Ukrainian publications. In accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Legal Deposit of Documents” and a number of other laws and regulations, the library receives a mandatory printed copy of all replicated documents published on the territory of Ukraine. In practice, since the 1990s, many publishers have not complied with legal deposit laws. Exclusively the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine receives a printed copy of dissertations defended on the territory of Ukraine, and some types of mandatory electronic copy: abstracts of dissertations (since 1998) and printed special publications (since 2009).
The building of the Vernadsky Library, which was built from 1976 to 1989 according to the design of the Kievproekt architects Vadim Gopkalo (Ukrainian House deserves a special story, Hotel “Tourist”, first microdistrict of Troeshchina, river station) and Vadim Grechin (Holy Trinity Cathedral, design of the Bereznyakov and Troeshchyna microdistricts, Ukrainian house). Air conditioning units allow maintaining optimal temperature and humidity in rooms. The vertical part of the structure (book depository) has 27 floors; the horizontal part contains reading rooms and library service rooms. The interior of the main room is decorated with works of fine art of significant artistic value. In the lobby of the library there is a monumental and decorative panel “Pains of the Earth” (authors V. Pasivenko and V. Pryadko), the foyer in front of the reading rooms is decorated with a triptych tapestry “The Origins of Slavic Writing” (authors M. Litovchenko and I. Litovchenko). The authors of both works became laureates of the State Prize of Ukraine named after Taras Shevchenko in 1998. In the reading rooms, air is exchanged three times within an hour. By equipping the ceilings of these halls with glass lanterns, the lighting of workplaces has been improved.
Where is the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine?
Goloseevsky Prospekt, 3
(044) 524-81-36
January-June: 09:15-20:00 (Mon-Sat, Sun: 09:15-18:00), July-September: 09:15-18:00 (Mon-Sat, Sun: closed), October- December: 09:15-20:00 (Mon-Sat, Sun: 09:15-18:00), every last working day of the month is sanitary