On January 13, 2010 to the main library of the Samara region turned 150 years old. During this time it has gone from Samara public (public) with a capacity of 800 books to the main public repository of the region with over 4 million documents. It’s discovery in 1860 contributed to the emergence of a year earlier by Governor Konstantin Karlovich Grot, a small cabinet under the editorial read “Samara Provincial Gazette”. Grot took care of his offspring for many years, before his death he bequeathed it his private collection of books.
Great contribution to the development of the library has made a public figure, Mayor Petr Alabin, who became in 1884 the chairman of the committee of public libraries. He himself created library catalogs, reports on the work, terms of use to readers. On his initiative, in 1882 , the library was renamed in honor of the reformer emperor Alexander II to “Alexandrovskaya”.
By the 90 th of the XIX century the library consisted of 50 thousand books. A successful operation was largely determined by the staff. For example, the great merit of Yulia Danilovna Bogomolova, who had been in charge of the library for 37 years (from 1884 to 1921) and made it one of the best in Russia. In the years after the revolution it became known as the central library and got the name of the October Revolution. Its activity of those years was conducted under the slogan “Books to the masses”.
During the Great Patriotic War, the library served the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR People’s Commissariat, employees of foreign embassies. It was frequently attended by prominent public figures of the time: Ilya Ehrenburg, Dmitri Shostakovich, Nikolai Aduev and etc. To its centennial Kuibyshev Regional Library came with million fund. It was awarded the Diploma of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR . It belonged to her initiative for local history work is closely related to the life of the region. In the 60 -70- ies of XX century in the library were held public events, following composers were involved: Dmitri Kabalevsky, Nikita Theology, poets and writers Robert Rozhdestvensky, Fazu Aliyev, Sergei Mikhalkov, etc.
Under the leadership of the library and with the direct participation of many of its employees in the 70- 80s the centralization of state public libraries was held, and the library strengthened its position as an instructional Center. By 1973, the library had about two million publications. A number of readers records reached over 50 thousand people. In August 1975, the library was approved by interregional depository of Volga area.
The unique collection of the library has collected more than 52 thousand foreign books in 62 languages . Among them are: lifetime editions of Goethe, J. Duma, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne. In the department of rare books and manuscripts it is stored 30 thousand editions XV-XX centuries. There are books written on ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic. Unique collections of books from the Usolsk estate of Orlov-Davydov, edition autographed N.M. Zhukovsky, A.N. Ostrovsky, S.T. Aksakov and other prominent writers. It is also presented there a collection of local history and local publications and many other values.
Late 80 ‘s – early 90 -ies of XX century – a time of great change in the library. It gets its own building and the era of the development of computer technology began. At the end of 1993 the first tentative steps in the development of computer technology were made, comprehensive program ALIS “Marc” by NPO “Informsistema” was aquired. On 15 October 1993 the first entry in the bibliographic catalog of electronic books was being made. To date, it is listed over 640 thousands of records.
Many years as a central universal book depository Samara region, scientific and methodological center, the regional center industry information on culture and art, the library becomes a coordinating center and library automation field. Keeping traditions, library seeks to master new information space and staff gradually introduce innovative technology service users.
In 2005, the base was transferred to the electronic catalog in MS SQL format. New technology provides reliable operation and storage of the electronic catalog and also allows you to connect an electronic catalog to various Internet applications. Workstations in the catalog room are organized for searching of information in an electronic catalog within the library and in purpose to find information via the Internet, there are 10 workstations for independent work with Internet resources operated in electronic information sector.