Library History

Sumy State University Library was founded in September 1960 as a branch technical library of Sumy General Technical Faculty of the Ukrainian Correspondence Polytechnic Institute.

The first employee and organizer was a graduate of the Kharkiv State Library Institute, I. Razdorska. 380 copies of educational and methodical literature were transferred to the newly created subdivision for temporary storage. The library was located in a small room on the 3rd floor of the training and consulting center on the street Pryvokzalna (m. Sumy).

In 1966, when the branch of the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute was established, the funds of the Library numbered more than 30 thousand copies.

In 1989, under the leadership of T. Slabko, the Library was moved to a new, modern four-story building with a total area of 5,000 m2.

In 1992, 2 branches of the Library were established: at the medical faculty and in the student dormitory.

Since 1999, the SumDU Library has been entered in the register of the Higher Attestation Commission for sending out dissertation abstracts.

In 2008, the Museum of Historical and Local Lore Sciences of SumDU was opened on the premises of the Central Library, founded by the candidate of philological sciences V.B. Zvagelsky.

In 2009, the Library of Sumy State University became the "Library of the Year" according to the version of the Ukrainian Library Association for the introduction of new technologies, computerization of library processes and the creation of an open information environment.

In 2011, the site of SumDU Library became the first in the nomination "The best site of the library of a higher educational institution" according to the results of the All-Ukrainian competition of library Internet sites.

In 2013, the Electronic Catalog of the SumDU Library entered the top 10 best catalogs in Ukraine.

In 2014, SumDU Library received a letter of thanks from the All-Ukrainian public organization "Ukrainian Library Association" for the high level of electronic catalogs.

In 2016, the Scientific Library of the Ukrainian Academy of Banking of the NBU became part of the SumDU Library as a result of the merger of two educational institutions. Currently, the branch of the library is located in the Congress Center of SumDU.

In 2018, the Strategy of Development of the SumDU Library for 2018–2022 was approved, which defines the mission, goals, vision, guidelines, and priority areas of reforming the university library center.

In 2018, the SumDU repository according to the Webometrics Transparent Ranking of Repositories ranking 35th among all global repositories, 29th among the world's institutional repositories, and 1st among Ukrainian repositories in terms of the number of documents indexed by Google Scholar.

In 2019, SumDU Library became the winner in the nomination "Large Libraries" of the competition "Library of the Year 2019" of the Ukrainian Library Association, for the implementation of projects "Reading changes us and everything around" and "Green Library".

In 2019, the Library joined the global flash mob TetrisChallenge. BBC Ukraine made a selection of Ukrainian participants #TetrisChallenge, which included a photo taken by the staff of the SumDU library.

In 2019, one of the reading rooms of the library was converted into Coworking "Univer CITY". Zones for learning and communication have been created, modern licensed and open software and cloud services have been installed in order to popularize them and actively implement them in the educational process and science.

In 2019, the library staff won the Hit FM "Work-Dance" promotion.

In 2020, the Library launched the project "SumDU on the pages of Wikipedia". The work of the project is to create and post materials about different areas of activity and personalities of the university to the free encyclopedia Wikipedia, in order to promote the achievements of the university.

In 2020, according to the Webometrics Transparent Ranking of Repositories to the number of works indexed by Google Scholar, SumDU Repository took 1st place among Ukrainian repositories and 47th place among world repositories.

In 2021 on the basis of the SSU Library was created International Club for Students.

According to the results of the August 2021 version of the Transparent Ranking world ranking from Webometrics, SSU Repository is the first among the institutional repositories of Ukraine in terms of the number of documents indexed by Google Scholar (59,500). Our repository ranks 35th out of 3,803 institutional repositories worldwide and 45th out of 3,942 repositories worldwide.

In 2022 cooperation with the University of Liverpool library was started within the framework of the "Unification Initiative" program, which provides for the possibility of cooperation of Ukrainian HEIs with sister universities in the EU and Great Britain, with the aim of providing support to the academic community of Ukrainian universities.

In 2022 the Library Development Strategy for 2023-2027 was developed, which defines the main priority directions of the library's activities for the next five years. When developing the strategy, the task of ensuring the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is taken into account.

In 2023 LibGuides project was launched by the library of Sumy State University with the aim of systematizing all available resources by areas of research/specialties of the academic community of Sumy State University. The LibGuides site contains information about educational and scientific information resources, periodicals and books, services and tools for researchers; provided information about consultants who perform the functions of subject librarians: provide information support and facilitate the establishment of partnership relations with faculties/institutes.

In 2023 according to the results of the winter version of 2023. in the global ranking of repositories Transparent Ranking by Webometrics, the repository of Sumy State University took first place among institutional repositories of Ukraine in terms of the number of documents indexed by Google Scholar; 27th place - among 3,922 institutional repositories of the world; 38th place - among 4,048 repositories of the world.

In 2023 the launched art project "Library+Theatre=Verbal reconstruction". For the first time, the premiere of the play "Silhouettes" by the youth theater "City S" took place in the literary lounge of Sumy State University. The production was brought to life by the director Nataliya Cherkasenko based on the works of Lina Kostenko.

In 2023 the "Barrier-free SumDU Library" project was introduced with the aim of creating an accessible physical and informational environment in which equal conditions, rights and development opportunities are ensured for all people, in particular for persons with disabilities and other groups of the population with reduced mobility. Within the scope of the project, the functions of social subject librarians have been introduced.

In 2024 with the support of UBA, the 2nd Lithuanian-Ukrainian library forum "The role of libraries in solving the problems of a democratic society" took place. The forum was held in Vilnius, Panevezys and Kupyškis. Olga Krytska, director of the library of Sumy State University, became a participant. Key issues of the Forum: library management, media information literacy, preservation and renewal of cultural heritage, community involvement, availability of services.

In 2024 The library of Sumy State University was chosen as the coordinator of the Working Group of Libraries of the Alliance of Ukrainian Universities, which includes 6 universities: Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, Kyiv School of Economics, Dnipro Polytechnic National Technical University, National University of Water Management and Environmental Management, Sumy State University, Ukrainian Catholic University.