National Library of Irad
The National Library of Irad named after Amanbek Alimbekov (Iradi: Amanbek Alimbekov atyndagy Irad Uluttuk Kitepkanasy), usually called the Alimbekov Library, is the national library of Irad, on the campus of Talas State University in Talas. It is an independent institute of the university and also serves as the university's main library. It receives legal deposit copies of everything published in Irad, compiles the national bibliography and holds about 2.3 million items, about 1.6 million of them in Talas and the rest in its Nurzhan branch.[1]
History
The library has two origins. The State Republican Library of the Iradi SSR named after A. S. Pushkin was founded in Kobozev in 1934. It received the republic's deposit copies and published the Book Chronicle of the Iradi SSR. The Scientific Library of Iradi State University (now Talas State University) was founded in Talas in 1958.[1]
After the surrender of the socialist forces in 1992, the territorial administration moved the national institutions to Talas. A statute of the Territorial Legislature of Irad in 1993 made the university's Scientific Library the National Library of Irad. Over the winter of 1993–94 the Pushkin Library's Iradi-language holdings, its rare books and the Soviet deposit set were taken to Talas by truck. Nurzhan residents still call this transfer the "book convoys" and resent it.[2] The Pushkin building in Nurzhan became the library's Nurzhan branch and kept the Russian-language and technical collections. Locals still call it "the Pushkin". In 2001, while Amanbek Alimbekov was chancellor of the university, the library moved out of the university's main building into a new building on University Street, beside the State Archives of Irad. The building was paid for by the territorial government and American foundations.[1] After Alimbekov's death the library was named after him in 2005. Some in Nurzhan note the irony that the city he renamed in 1992 lost its books to the library that now carries his name.[2] Since 2007 its director has been appointed by the Governor of the Irad Special Economic Zone on the nomination of the rector.
Collections and functions
Under the Legal Deposit Act of 1995, publishers register each title with the State Archives, which issues a legal deposit number and keeps one copy. Two more copies go to the library. Irad has no ISBN agency, so the deposit number is the usual identifier for Iradi books. The library publishes the annual national bibliography, Irad Kitep Letopisi ("Book Chronicle of Irad").[1]
Its special collections include:
- the rare-books room of Iradi printing from the 1920s and 1930s, most of it from the Pushkin Library;
- the deposit copies of Talas State University Press;
- the university's theses since 1961;
- a complete file of the Talas Herald;
- a sound archive of about 6,000 hours of epic and song, kept with the university's Department of Ethnography.
Part of the Soviet-era card catalogue of the Scientific Library was lost when the university's main building was shelled in 1992. In October 2026 the library opened a Digital Archive of long-form works, beginning with Aikokul Tursunbek kyzy's Twelve Kilometres.[3] Readers in Nurzhan have complained that the branch gets little money for new books, and that items held in Talas take weeks to reach them.[2]
References
- ^ National Library of Irad (2018). Twenty-Five Years of the National Library, 1993–2018. Talas State University Press, Talas.
- ^ Central Asian Demographic Review (2022). "The Russophone Industrial Intelligentsia of the Chu Basin." Vol. 15, pp. 112–129.
- ^ Talas State University (2026). "National Library of Irad." Official website.