The University Library collections have an encyclopaedic structure. Its beginning dates back to the first half of the 17th century (1640). The prince Vasile Lupu offered the library a part of his books. These books are still part of the library collections today. The Library's history has experienced an uneven evolution through the ages. Its real development began in 1835, when it was known as the Academia Mihaileana Library, as a national and public library with official depository status. In 1860 it was reorganized and known under the name University Library of Iasi. Its continuity is attested by a large number of books which are marked by ex-libris, stamps and notes.
The library's development was influenced by scholars such as: Vasile Lupu, Bishop Varlam, Costache Negri, V. Alecsandri, M. Kogalniceanu. The collections were also completed by the donations of: Veniamin Costache, M. Sturza, B.P.Hasdeu. The institution was led by famous names including: B.P.Hasdeu, Mihai Eminescu, Gh. Asachi who elaborated the first library statute. In 1868 its collections were around 10,000 library units and now there are about 2,300,000 library units.
Begining with 1948, it was known under the name Central University Library. Its special collections comprise ten incunabula, 1300 manuscripts, 6000 rare foreign books, about 200 Romanian books (from the 16th to the 19th century), 850 atlases, around 2000 maps, 3400 prints, 415 photocopies, 800 microfilms, 13,200 albums, 14,400 scores and over 40,000 postcards. Among bibliophile valuables, we could mention:
- Gospel Greek Lectionar - from the 8th century the oldest manuscript in our country
- Byzanthine Psaltichie (Psalm - book) from the 13th century
- Sanskrit Grammar and Glossarium Sanscritorum by Franz Bopp translated by M.Eminescu
- Psalm - book Codex from Putna (1496)
- Vitae Plutarchi... (1499)
- J.Pollux - Onomastican Vocabularium (1502)
- Aristoteles - Opera omnia (1539)
- Coresi - The book which has the name Gospel with knowledge...(1580 - 1581)
- Pravila from Gevora (1640)
- Varlaam: Romanian Book of knowledge (1643)
- The New Testament (1648)
- Dosoftei - The Psalm-book in verses (1673)
- Life of saints (1682)
- Dimitrie Cantemir - Divanul... ( The Divan - 1698)
The library has a head office and 18 branches and its reading rooms offer about 1400 places.
Library Services:
-
- offers possibility of research in its reading rooms (the whole
collection);
- loans of books;
- loans and interlibrary exchanges (internal and external);
- reference, bibliographies, offers information concerning the library information system and the reference documents;
The library has about 1300 partners from 60 countries for interlibrary loan (it consists of 2000 books received per year and about 100 serials). Among them:
-
Revue de travail (Bruxelles)
The English Historical Review (London)
English Review (London).
The library has about 23,000 users per year, and about 1,000,000 loans.
The library uses the library software programme VUBIS for information processing and dBase for loans. There are 49 computers at the head-office and 13 computers at its branches. Most of them have 486 Intel processors. The library is connected to INTERNET and has e-mail.