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The Establishment of Tallinn Free Public Library
In 1906 the Tallinn Temperance Board of Trustees
turned to the municipal authorities to ask support for
the establishment of a public library in Tallinn. The local
government, aware of the function of the trustees as an
extension of the czarist arm, decided on 7 June 1906 to
open a library. Preparations started in the autumn of that
year when the city councillor Juhan Umblia sent the City
Council a letter containing precise proposals in the matter
of establishing a library. Umblia used the municipal libraries
of Helsinki and Riga as his models. He proposed that the
library’s collections should correspond to the nationalities
living in Tallinn and contain literature in three languages:
Estonian, Russian and German. He thought it necessary
to consider the nationalities as a proportion of total
population – as the greatest part was Estonian, 5/6 of the
books should be in Estonian. Umblia’s letter was effective:
quite soon a committee was chosen from the councillors
to prepare the library, headed by the mayor, Voldemar
Lender. The committee scrutinized and supplemented
Umblia’s proposals and decided to use the statutes of not
only Helsinki’s and Riga’s libraries as a model, but also
those of St Petersburg and Moscow. On 13 December the
City Council accepted the decision to establish a library,
allotted 3000 ruble of the city’s resources to the library and
appointed Juhan Umblia to the position of chairman of the
steering committee.
The provincial government
of Eestimaa did not
approve of all the statutes:
on their orders the
minimum age of readers
was set at 16, not 10 as the
preparation committee
had intended. Only books
with more than one copy
in the library could be
lent, and only the previous
year’s magazines. As the
library could not afford to
buy more than one copy of any book, the lending of books
was thus circumscribed. Vigilance was evident elsewhere
as well: schoolchildren could only use the library with the
written approval of the headmaster. The issuing of these
permits was controlled.
Hendrik Mikkor, a teacher from Viljandimaa, was chosen
to be the director and Hugo Kurnim became his assistant.
After Kurnim’s death, Adam Peterson from Viljandimaa,
a well-known figure in the national movement, became
assistant director.
The library was in a busy location near Raekoja plats at
Nunne 2 at the corner of Nunne and Lai.There were three
rooms, one of which was used as the wardrobe, and the other
two contained 63 seats for readers. The library was much
used from the start and in the evenings long queues formed.
Finding new rooms for the library already then came under
discussion. The readership of the library was quite varied.
The greatest proportion were skilled workers (25.1%)
and people with a secure profession (14.1%). There were
somewhat fewer workers(13.8%) and office workers(10%).
Teachers made up 3.8% and students 2.1%.
In 1908 the great
Estonian writer A. H.
Tammsaare (1878–1940)
started visiting the library.
After a bout of tuberculosis
and a long time away
from Tallinn, Tammsaare
started visiting the library
again in 1921 after the
library had moved to the
premises of the Russian
Social Club, which the city of Tallinn had bought for the
library. In 1919 the director Hendrik Mikkor resigned. His
successor Anton Schmidt lasted in the position only one year
– the work was to strenuous. In December 1920 Aleksander
Sibul (1884–1981) was chosen to be the new director of the
library.