History of Kyiv Library for Children in Names

Abstract

The article aims to consider the 100-year history of Kyiv Library for Children which was the first in Ukraine and one of the first in Europe. It was founded by Dora Dobra, a hereditary honorary citizen of Kyiv, on August 17, 1909. The historiography of this issue is analysed. It is found out that the study of cultural and educational aspects of the establishment and development of library for children as a socio-cultural phenomenon carry out for many decades by Mykola Znishchenko, scientists of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, The National Library of Ukraine for Children, and other institutions. Historical, biographical, and logical methods, methods of observation and comparison allowed to search for literature, its analysis, and generalization, to conduct observations during the publication of search results for educators and librarians of Kyiv, participants of the All-Ukrainian online conference, to gain new valuable facts, to find out common in methods and forms of the library at the time of its foundation and nowadays, to predict the further development of the institution. The biographical method was used to study the peculiarities of the life and creative path of the library’s founders and leaders. As a result, it was established that, at the time of the foundation, the base of books collection of the library included the best works of both domestic and foreign authors in the original language. That met the new requirements of education and teaching, contributed to the intellectual development of children and the original cultural stratum of Kyiv. The three heads of the library (Dora Dobra, Tetiana Giba, Mykola Znishchenko) were united by love for books and the library, diligence, and, most importantly, a strong sense of vocation . It is concluded that the library has gone through a long and difficult way of formation and development, and today provides favorable conditions for selfrealization of children in accordance with their interests and social requirements.