The Rodina Library is one of the oldest libraries in Bulgaria and the oldest one in the region of StaraZagora. Its history started on 20/25th March 1860 with the opening of the first community of culture in Zheleznik initiated by the head teacher Todor Shishkov and about twenty active citizens of Stara Zagora. In the very beginning it possessed only 51 volumes of books (they came from the St Nicolas school library and the donations of the first community of culture figures) and its activities aimed “to support and stimulate the literary education among our compatriots”. On its tenth anniversary the library had 15 000 volumes of “different historical, moral, philosophical etc contents accessible for all the citizens.”

Unfortunately during the big fire in 1877 the literary heritage of the library had disappeared in the flames. Valuable incunabula and renaissance books donated before the Liberation by Todor Shishkov, Dimitar Tsonkov, Petar Ivanov, Zahari Knyazheski, Anstasya Tosheva burnt out.

Like the bird Phoenix, the library was reborn from the ashes with the great help of the patriotic citizens of Stara Zagora and now it possesses 300 000 volumes of books, periodicals, graphic and cartographic issues, books of notes, records, cassettes, film strips, CD-s. In the book-stock are kept unique incunabula and a collection of different sources of knowledge of the region, more than 14 000 of printed editions from the beginning of the XX century to the 50-s of the XX century in Bulgarian, Russian, Greek, Romanian, French, German and English languages organized in a fund called “Rare and valuable”; the manuscripts “Letters” (1854) by Todor Shishkov, “Rhetoric” (1868) by Pencho Drumev, “Chemistry” and “Botanic” (1873) by Stefan Ploskov; the donated funds of the library of town, of the library of the former secondary school for girls “Maria-Luiza”, the libraries of professor Stefan Kirov and the family Milyo Kasabovi, hundreds of banned books from the years 50 and 60-s; the first editions of almanacs, collections, bulletins, historical works, official editions, dictionaries, reference books etc.

This valuable fortune kept and preserved for the third millennium is due to our predecessors: S. Ivanchov, Petar Ivanov, Mara Shopova, Slavi Abanozov, Tosko Iliev, Konstantin Konyarov, Filip Marinov, Stefan Stamatov, Nana Manolova, Zlatka Zhekova.

In the beginning of the XXI century the Rodina Library is challenged to be recognized as a local public informational centre. At the moment there is a local network of twelve computers and three consumer computers which allowed the library informational process to become automated.

The Rodina Library is the first cultural institution in Stara Zagora where there is an access for disabled people thanked to the project “Open doors” realized with the kind support of project Ministry of Culture of Bulgaria, MATRA Program of the Netherlands government, United States Agency for International Development, United Nations Development Program. Now an informational Centre for disabled people works within the library.

The Rodina Library is a joint member of the Union of Librarians and Information Service Officers in Bulgaria.

Rodina Library
17 Ruski blv.
6000 Stara Zagora
Phones: +359 42 630113, +359 42 623855, +359 42 630012
Fax: +359 42/ 603 950
E-mail:lib@rodina-bg.org
WEB: www.rodina-bg.org