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About Gh. Asachi Public Library of Iasi and its Collections | Library Information System
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About the Gh. Asachi Public Library of Iasi

The "Gh. Asachi" Public Library in Iasi was founded in 1920. It was established on the occasion of the setting up of the cultural association "Museum of Iasi" which proscribed that the library would collect primarily books published in Iasi and both serials and books about Iasi and Moldova.

To increase the size of the public library's collection, the association decided to offer the books belonging to the Town Hall Library to the new library.

Those collections were also completed with donation from various sources: Romanian Academy, Casa Scoalelor (School House), Official Monitory, etc. It was 1935 when the library became an official institution with its own budget and specialized staff.

In 1937, among the scholars who offered books as donations was N. Iorga. In the same year, the library was opened for readers.

Today, its head-office is in the Palace of Culture , emblem building for Iasi. The library has also four branch libraries throughout the city.

The present encyclopaedic, retrospective collections number around 600,000 library units. These library collections contain: incunabula, bibliophile issues, 16th-18th century books, important works about Romanian history, cultural history, general and spe cialized encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and books printed in Iasi and about Iasi. (Click here for a list of some of the most important works.) In addition, the library continues to acquire about 20,000 recent imprints on all subjects each year.