Estonian Defence Forces

Libraries

Kristina RallmannHeadquarters of Estonian Defence Forces

Our history can be divided into two phases:

First period in 1918-1940 Second started in 1991

The first military libray in the territory of Estonia was established in 1847 – The Marine Officer´s library

Libraries were founded together with the defence forces

Firstly mentioned in the newspaper “Sotsiaaldemokraat” in 1917

Officers called the nation to give books to the soldiers as gifts

The First Republic of Estonia

No finances for new literature No directions No specialised librarians Classification of books and circulation

system did not exist

The First Republic of Estonia

By 1926 there were 20 libraries

Special course for librarians was held in 1926

In 1927 appeared in print a book “A handbook for the organisation of the defence force libraries”

The First Republic of Estonia

Specific two-steps classification

In the General Staff library were constructed preferred-lists of military books

The directions how to bind and lend books were given out

The First Republic of Estonia

The last message from the military library have appeared in 1939

In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Estonia

The defence forces were liquidated

Our libaries stopped existing

The First Republic of Estonia

In 1991 Estonia started to rebuild our national defence

Military libraries started from zero

Most of the units were formed in 1992 and 1993

Libraries were established by the staff of the units

The new beginning

Estonians from outside the country collected books through donations

An article about poor conditions of libraries appeared in print in aprill 2000

Officers had been turned to the public for donations

The new beginning

It was advertised a campaign “Give a book for soldier”

40 000 books were gathered

We got only fiction, not military literature

The new beginning

Libraries of units worked individually

Problems and concerns were identical

An idea of formulating a one central defence force libary turned up

The new beginning

Headquarters library was opened in 4. of May 2004

Library started to serve Headquarters of Defence Forces and Headquarters of Naval Force, Air Force and Land Force

The new beginning

Preliminary plan was to start with 3 different fields of operation:

1. Creating the set of defence force libraries2. To be ready for developing into a central

library of the defence forces3. Start with Estonian military bibliographic

database

The new beginning

We started up by uniting the 2 libary databases into one

After that we started to connect all the libaries step-by-step

We organised a training to librarians how to use electronic catalog and how organise electronic circulation

Creating the set of libraries:

14 libraries joined with us

Creating the set of libraries:

Headquarters and Estonian Defence College libraries are special libraries in militay area

Libraries in Units : A place for soldier to spend his free time A place to borrow books to read They almost don´t have special military

literature, except manuals and textbooks

Mission of libaries

I compared books in foreign languages in my libary with other bigger scientific libraries funds

75 % of the books we have in our library are uniq in Estonia

A little statistical reseach in 2007

http://www.biblioserver.com/kaitse/

Started to compose in 2007 in collaboration with Baltic Defence College library

Estonian Military Bibliographic Database

The aim of the database is to register all the books, newspapers and magazines in Estonian language about military matters

Includes collection of articles about Estonian Defence Forces and Estonian military history

Estonian Military Bibliographic Database

Includes rare Estonian militay books in pdf-format (in collaboration with National Library EOD-project)

Reader can find a list of undergraduate papers, master´s and doctorate thesis and scientific publication issued bu employees of defence forces (bibliographic records only)

Estonian Military Bibliographic Database

Our libraries have become quite important units in the structure of Estonian Defence Forces

In institutions libary is very good instrument to motivate employees

We hope that leaders of Estonian Defence Forces will continue to support the development and existence of military libraries

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!