ANAS Central Library of Science

Central Scientific Library
Type	scientific
Established	1924
Other information
Director	Leyla Imanova
Website	http://mek.az/en/

The ANAS Central Library of Science (Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences) is a library founded in 1923 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

History

The Central Scientific Library (CSL) started functioning as a Bibliography Bureau under the "Azerbaijan Society of Research and Investigation" ("Azərbaycanı Tədqiq və Tətəbbö Cəmiyyəti" ATTC) with the initiative and support of a number of prominent Azerbaijani intellectuals – Nariman Narimanov, Abdurrahim bey Hagverdiyev, Taghi Shahbazi, Hanafi Zeynalli and others in 1924. The "Bibliography Bureau" (1924), which was established under the guidance of outstanding literary-bibliographer Professor Alexander Vasilyevich Baqriyin, was the primary basis for the formation of the CSL.

The Library was established at a meeting held by the "Azerbaijan Society of Research and Investigation" in November 1923, and functioned under it. At that time, the library collection consisted of 430 copies of books and 1200 pieces of precious manuscripts. In August, 1925, in order to prevent the Library and Bibliography Bureau duplicating work, the two were merged into the "Library-Bibliography Bureau". Hanafi Zeynalli (1896-1938) became a Chairman of the Bureau.

The first steps towards the establishment of the Central Library were carried out in 1923-1924. In 1945, in connection with establishment of the independent Academy of Sciences, The Central Scientific Library underwent further development. The ANAS Central Scientific Library was called the Fundamental Library between 1963 and 1984. Since 1984, the Fundamental Library has been called the Central Scientific Library.

The ANAS Central Scientific Library (CSL) developed during the presidency of Heydar Aliyev. Referring to the 54th item of the Article 5 of Charter of ANAS, a decree on January 4, 2003 by President Heydar Aliyev gave the CSL status as a scientific institution.

From 1925, the Central Scientific Library (CSL) established under the guidance of Hanafi Zeynalli, became one of the country's largest libraries and played an irreplaceable role in the development of a science and in the training of scientific personnel. Central Scientific Library was headed variously by S.M.Yahyazade, Y.İ.Tahirov, Nazim Akhundov, Rasim Kazimov, Mahbube Hasanova, Amin Efendiyev, Aybeniz Aliyeva-Kengerli. Currently, the director of ANAS CSL is Leyla Bekir Imanova, PhD in Medicine.

The ANAS CSL, which is considered the largest library on natural, technical and humanitarian sciences in Azerbaijan, possesses a rich collection of books storing up to 3 million copies of books in more than 50 languages.

International relations

The CSL was elected a member of International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in 1993. [24] In 2012, ANAS SCL was received as a full member of the Association of Scientific Libraries under the Council of Europe - the first in Azerbaijan.

The CSL is a centre of international book exchange in the republic. It has built relationships with academic institutions and public figures in the United States, England, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and implements literature and information exchange.

More than 80 partners are located in the United States. The most active include the Library of Congress in Washington, the Library of the University of Michigan, the University of California in Los Angeles and the Library of the University of Illinois. The CSL exchanges books with the London Institute of Geography, Asia Society, British Museum the National Library in Paris, the Hamburg Institute of Zoology, Japan's Earthquake Research Institute in Tokyo and the Library of the Institute of Mathematics, amongst others.

The CSL held meetings with representatives of several embassies during 2015 within the framework of these relationships.

• Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Morocco to Azerbaijan Hassan Hami (April 9, 2015)
• Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates to Azerbaijan Abdulla Yasim Al-Shamsi (April 21, 2015)
• Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Mohammad Taqi Khalili (April 23, 2015)
• Chargé d'Affaires of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden to Azerbaijan, Thomas Danestad (April 30, 2015)
• Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Iraq to Azerbaijan, Heydar Shiya Gubeyshi Al-Barrak (May 4, 2015)
• Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, Toyli Komekov (May 5, 2015)
• Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Palestine to Azerbaijan, Nasser Abdul Karim (May 6, 2015)
• Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of South Korea to Azerbaijan, Choi Suk-inn (May 20, 2015)
• Deputy permanent of the Embassy of Colombia to Azerbaijan, Jose Khater Pena (May 29, 2015)
• Chief Advisor of the Embassy of the Russian Federation to Azerbaijan, Alexander Gladkov (May 29, 2015)

A CSL group visited the United Kingdom on January 8, 2015. During the visit, a number of important meetings were held and the group studied the experience of libraries in the British Libraries situated in London and in New York. On September 28, 2015 a CSL group participated in the "X International Book Fair" and an international scientific conference on the theme that "The book is the way of progress and cooperation" held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. The CSL was represented at the 34th international book exhibition on November 7, 2015. A CSL group visited the Russian State Library and the Presidential Library named after Yeltsin. As a result of the visit, colleagues became acquainted with the experiences in the field of library staff management, bibliography-information technology and programming, with their the Russian colleagues.

Collections of the library

The library contains a number of collections:

• The literature collection in Azerbaijani language contains over 79,171 pieces of books in the collection. Also, there are 18,530 journals, 1,514 newspapers, 5,856 dissertations, 15,993 abstracts and 56,334 continuous publications in the collection.
• Literature collection in Russian language – includes over 600 thousand copies. It contains various scientific and artistic literatures, dictionaries, photocopies and the press publications belonging the period from the Middle Ages to the present day.
• Literature collection in eastern languages - includes over 73,855 thousand copies. The appreciable books and journals (respectively 427 and 847 pieces) and private archive materials of the turklogy section of Georg Hazai's private library are stored in the collection. In the collection, Orientalist, Associate member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, State Prize Laureate of the USSR, Y.E. Bertels's 4 384 books, Professor, World-renowned orientalist Y.A. Belyayev's 233 books, Orientalist scholar B.N.Zaxoder's 2 115 books, diplomat Zahid Huseynzade's 478 books and Maestro Niyazi's 62 books gifted are stored.
• Literature collection in Western European languages – owns 59,503 copies of book, 150,500 journals. The collection carries out book exchange with great libraries, organizations, universities and scientists of states of Western Europe.
• Rare book collection - there are 14 215 copies of publication. Personal collection of numismatic scholar Y.A.Pakhomov deserves attention. There is scientific literature about archeology, ethnography, numismatic of Azerbaijan in the collection. There are universal encyclopedias such as "Encyclopaedia of Americana", "Encyclopaedia of Britannica", "Alpha encyclopaedia", "La grande encyclopaedigue universelle en couleure" etc., social science encyclopedias such as "Encyclopaedia of İslam", "Encyclopaedia İranica" and etc.
• Periodical press collection - 2,757 newspapers, 303,320 magazines, 640 photocopies, 9,062 press chronicles and 66,561 continuing publications in Azerbaijani, Russian and foreign languages are stored. • Dissertation collection - is consist of 51 168 copies. The collection includes in addition to dissertations in Azerbaijan, Russian and other languages, abstracts. There are electronic versions (in discs) of dissertations with their printed versions.
• Exchange collection - the volume is not constant. The collection implements literature and information exchange by contacting with libraries, academies, scientific-research institutes, universities, publishing houses of USA, many European countries as well as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the CIS countries.
• Secondary collection - volume is 2,181 copies.
• Private collections collection - includes 4,178 print products. The collection owns collections of well-known intellectuals, such as Eugenie Bertels, Boris Zakhoder, Zahid Huseynzade, Maestro Niyazi, Georg Hazai, Rodob Ivanov, Pokhomov, Imam Mustafayev, Mirza Ibrahimov, Michael Useynov, Khudu Mammadov, Rasim Kerimov, Abbas Zamanov as well as collections of Azerbaijan Society of Petroleum Geologists, Nakhchivan section of ANAS, National History Museum of ANAS.

Halls of the library

• There are reading rooms on each floor of the library and their total number is 14. In each hall, there is self-check equipment, scanner, open book storage, access to electronic and traditional catalog and rest rooms. The reading rooms can serve for more than 1,000 readers at the same time. The reading rooms vary in terms of their capacity: a 10-person reading room (for the persons with poor sight abilities), the 50-person Dissertation and Academicians halls and the 160-person reading rooms.
• Academicians' hall - creates a special work condition for the scientists who are academicians of Academy of Sciences, and provides the fast access to the wide range literature and the space of international information.
• Dissertation hall - Dissertations and auto-synopsis are submitted for use in the open book of dissertation hall. In this hall, scientific works and dissertations (if their subjects are not closed) are discussed in format of report for public and it is planned collecting innovative proposals and submitting them to innovation department of ANAS.
• "Zəkalı" ("Intelligent") discussion room was supplied with modern equipment. It can simultaneously reflect and concentrate suggestions, corrections, design and etc. of 20 experts and provides possibilities for "hearing" all of fast discussions and opinions by VHV screen facilitator. It is used while discussions of Board members, experts, designers, working groups.
• In Conference hall, national and international events, meetings with scientists and writers, anniversaries, conferences, presentations of scientific researchers are carried out in a specific format.

Photogallery

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• Conference hall
  Conference hall