The history of acquisition of book funds of the Scientific Library of Tomsk University

In the literature on the history of the scientific library of Tomsk State University until recently it is maintained that the very first batch of books delivered to Tomsk and initiated the book fund of the Siberian University, was a book collection of count P.G. Stroganov in the amount of more than 35 thousand volumes Packed in 264 boxes weighing about 3 thousand pounds. It was this fund that the organizer of the first university in Siberia began cataloguing the future library. These books, according to the memoirs of the Florinsky were brought to Tomsk in the spring of 1880 "already on the last sledge way". Recently, it has become possible to specify the date of this important event for the history of the library and to restore the chronology of receipt of the first book collections in Tomsk. In the fund of V.M. Florinsky, stored in the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, were recently discovered compiled by the hand of V.M. Florinsky "Register of goods received in Tomsk for textbooks and supplies of the Siberian University" and he sketched a short list of goods with books. On the basis of the "Register" the article proves that the date of the first receipts refers to 21, 24 August and 1 October 1879. It was then that Tomsk received in the name of the director of the Tomsk provincial gymnasium Smirnov received goods from the libraries of academician and censor Nikitenko, Artemyev, professors Lapshin, Karpov (purchased with the money of P.I. Kuznetsov), poet V.A. Zhukovsky, professor Yakubovich, doublets from the Public library (St. Petersburg) and library of Prince Golitsyn. For the reconstruction of the history of admission to the Tomsk book collections an important source, in addition to the above, can also be found in the collection of V.M. Florinsky. It is handwritten draft of his "Report on occupations in the city of Tomsk from 1st June to 1st September 1880", dated November 30, 1880 and intended for the control of the Ministry of education of the privy Councilor A.A. Saburov. It made it possible to trace the work on the cataloguing of books received in the summer of 1880. It is suggested that their transportation from St. Petersburg and Moscow could go by a variety of modes of transport: rail, river, rail again, then horse-drawn and river again. And the last route from Tyumen to Tomsk passed through the system of Siberian rivers. It is concluded that the first collections of books donated or purchased for the library of the Siberian University were delivered to Tomsk in 1879. It is these collections which begin the history of completing the library of the first University in Asian Russia in Tomsk, and the very beginning of the existence of this library.

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