National Library of Belarus

The building is a rhombocubooctahedron ^[3] ( colloquially called “diamond” ^[2] ) with a height of 73.7 m ( 23 floors ) and a weight of 115,000 tons (not including books). The building area is 19.5 thousand m² ; the total area of ​​the building is 113.7 thousand m² , including a book depository - 54.9 thousand m² ; the construction volume of the building is 420.6 thousand m³ , including the storage facility - 200.6 thousand m³ . The new building is equipped with an automated literature delivery system “Telelift”, consisting of monorails and containers with a loading capacity of 5 to 10 kg ^[4] .

The backlight of the building is a multi - color screen ( media facade ) with an area of 1985 m² based on LED clusters , which turns on every day at sunset and works until midnight. The pattern and patterns on it are changing.

History

The National Library of Belarus (NBB) was founded by a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR in 1922 as the Belarusian State and University Library of the Belarusian State University (BSU) . At the time of opening, the library funds totaled only 60 thousand copies, which were used by 1.1 thousand people. The first own building of the library was the Jubilee House on Zakharyevskaya Street (now - Independence Avenue). By a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the BSSR of May 14, 1926, the library was withdrawn from the BSU and reorganized into the Belarusian State Library. In 1932, the library was named after V.I. Lenin . In the same year, the library received the new building of the architect G. Lavrov in a constructivist style.

At the beginning of 1941, the library had more than 2 million volumes, the number of readers was 15 thousand people. Its further development was interrupted by World War II. At the time of the liberation of Minsk, only 320 thousand copies survived from the two millionth library fund.

May 19, 1992 the State Library of the BSSR named after V.I. Lenin was renamed the National Library of Belarus. By this time, there was a need to build a new building for the library. The design of the new building of the State Library of the BSSR in the form of a rhombocuboctahedron was developed by architectsM.K. Vinogradov and V.V. Kramarenko back in the late 1980s and in 1989 became the winner of the All-Union competition. However, it was possible to realize it only after more than 15 years ^[1] .

$ 500,000 for the construction of the library was contributed by Saddam Hussein ^{[5] [6]} .

Construction began on November 2, 2002, not far from the Vostok-1 residential neighborhood and Vostok metro station. The acceptance of the first start-up complex, including a boiler room with utility networks, treatment facilities, an energy supply system, external utility networks, was carried out in October 2005. Landscaping work was also carried out on the adjacent territory (in 2016–2018, the eastern part of the park was demolished for the construction of a parking lot for a neighboring shopping center).

The second launch complex, the acceptance of which was completed at the end of December 2005, involves the commissioning of a book depository, reading rooms and office space, all engineering and information systems, as well as a sociocultural center. It includes a multifunctional conference room, a center for business meetings and negotiations, a music and art salon, a museum complex, an art gallery.

The launch of the third stage envisaged the start of the operation of a complex of information technology systems providing staff work and user service, an international meeting center, which includes the president’s office, two conference rooms and a summit hall and adjoining rooms. The commissioning of these facilities, which was carried out on May 31, 2006, allowed the library to be opened for readers.

In full, the complex of information technology systems (the fourth launch complex) began to function in October 2006.

On January 10, 2006, the transfer of book collections (from six different buildings) to the new library building began. At 11:00 a truck drove up to the building with the first three tons of literature in various languages ​​and periodicals loaded in special containers. The movement of book collections lasted several months. Last of all, rare editions were transported, including old-printed, located on the eighth floor of the library.

The new building of the National Library was inaugurated on June 16, 2006 ^[1] . The opening ceremony was attended by President Alexander Lukashenko (who received library card No. 1). The competition for the supply of data storage systems and servers was won by Hewlett-Packard . According to its representatives, at the time of opening the library in the CIS there were no decisions of this level.

Library funds

As of February 2018, the library contains more than 9.8 million storage units on various media ^[7] .

Database

As of September 2008 - 110 databases (the largest set in the republic).

Virtual reading room

Providing remote access to funds.

Electronic document delivery

This service allows you to order digital copies of fragments of documents (books, articles from magazines and newspapers, maps, etc.) from the collections of the National Library of Belarus to any country in the world. The order is made remotely through the library portal. Copies are sent by email.

In 2016, the NBB was visited by 77.4 thousand users, to whom 2449.3 thousand copies of books and magazines were issued (an average of 32 copies to one user) ^[8] .

The National Library of Belarus was placed in 11th place in the ranking of fantastic architectural works according to the American edition of Flavorwire in 2013. In 2011, she was included in the Russian book “100 Most Amazing Achievements of Modern Architecture”. The library took 24th place in the list of the 50 most unusual buildings in the world according to the Village of Joy website, mentioned in the Berlin edition of “The Best Libraries of the World” ^[9] .

• The National Archive of the Republic of Belarus - located in the same building as the library (3, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 floors)

• History of the National Library of Belarus
• Funds and collections of the National Library of Belarus
• "Diamond" inside
• The French will appreciate the “original interior solutions” of the National Library of Belarus and their “ergonomic features”
• View from the opposite building ( webcam )