Brief History
Along with the libraries of churches and schools in Braşov, with inventories and catalogs from 1575, 1625, and 1684, there were private libraries in the city, belonging to priests and scholars, as well as various associations, on the basis of which the later community libraries were founded. Such an organization, called Casina, founded in 1835, had a Romanian library, the first organized as a public library in the current sense of the word. The donation of the library of Alexandru Bogdan, who died in the war in 1914, was the starting point of the Astra Library, opened on January 19, 1930, in Casa Baiulescu (today address: 33 Eroilor Blvd.) and led by Ion Colan.
Astra Library was the city library during the interwar period, which was equipped, bought old and new books, attracted donations, and was organized in a modern way. Following the dissolution of Astra in 1948, the communists took over its collections and established the Braşov Regional Library in 1950, according to the ideology of the time. The S Fund appeared, the special fund of publications was banned for the public, and the collections were purged. In 1965, the Brasov Library received another headquarters, the former building of the Brasov Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where ARLUS (the Romanian Association for Relations with the USSR), local newspapers, and a cinema functioned after 1945. In 1969, the Brasov Regional Library became the Brasov County Library. During that period, the branches of the library have been open in different neighborhoods of the city.
In 1992, 180 years after the birth of George Bariţiu, the Library adopted his name as its spiritual patron. After the fall of communism, the library developed freely, modernizing itself, opening up to the community as an institution of information, culture, entertainment, and education, and diversifying its collections and services. The Lending Department was among the first library departments in Romania to be fully automated in 1998. Investments in technology continued, and the library asserts itself today through creativity and innovation, trying to keep up with technology and the trends of the time.
George Bariţiu: short biography
George Bariţiu (1812–1893) was one of the most versatile Romanian personalities from Transylvania in an era of modernity: a pedagogue, journalist, politician, and historian. Settled in 1836 in Braşov, where he stayed for 42 years, George Bariţiu essentially influenced the Romanians from Braşov and managed to fundamentally change the local environment, stimulating the emergence and development of new educational, cultural, economic, typographical, and associational institutions and structures. He founded Gazeta de Transilvania (Transylvania Gazzette) in 1838, the first Romanian political newspaper in Transylvania, and its supplement, Foaie pentru minte, inima si literatura (Sheet for Mind, Heart, and Literature). Participant in the Revolution of 1848, he fought and supported the cause of the national rights of Transylvanian Romanians all his life, being involved in the important political initiatives of the time. He also focused on economic activity, advocating for the construction of the railway from Transylvania to Bârsa County in connection with Muntenia, leading the Romanian Merchants’ Guild from Braşov, and being commercial director of the paper factory in Zărneşti between 1852 and 1872. He was the founder of Astra in 1861, together with other scholars, as its first secretary (1861–1877) and then president (1888–1893). In 1866, he was elected a member of the Romanian Academic Society in Bucharest, which became the Romanian Academy in 1877, whose president he became in 1893. In collaboration with Gavril Munteanu, he published a German-Romanian dictionary in 1853 and, in 1869, a Hungarian-Romanian dictionary. His main historical work is Părţi alese din istoria Transilvaniei pe două sute de ani în urmă (Selected Parts from the Transylvanian History Along Two Hundred Years), published in Sibiu in three volumes between the years 1888 and 1891. Established in Sibiu since 1878, he died there on May 2, 1893, and was buried next to Alexandru Papiu Ilarian.
Mission and vision
The main mission of a library is to support reading, promote and make books as visible as possible, cultivate the ability to read, and make efforts to make reading a daily concern and habit. Regardless of the support, printed or electronic, the book and reading are what smooth the path in life of any person, and the public library is an intermediary of the book for the most diverse categories of people. The public library is the institution that provides equal access to resources, from books to information, from collections to databases, from the Internet and technologies to training courses and various other facilities. The mission of the “George Bariţiu” County Library in Braşov is to satisfy the cultural, information, study, and leisure needs of all its users by offering free, equal, quality, and free access to its collections.
In fact, in this way, the library is a creator of opportunities as long as reading opens paths, develops opportunities, and ultimately supports personal development and the local economy. A community gains when it enjoys a functioning and dynamic public library, and the business environment benefits from having a resource like the public library at its disposal. Last but not least, we must not neglect that reading and books create bonds and unite people; the library connects to the community of its readers; both terms influence each other. The library and the book mean life lived fully and beautifully under the influence of the printed word and the sign of great ideas. The reading clubs, the blogs, and the social media accounts are means that promote the book and bring people together, sharing common feelings and experiences, interacting, and dialoguing.
Readers make a public library powerful; it attracts and keeps them and always helps and supports them. By its nature, the library is a space filled with books and people; it is a place of meeting, communication, friendship, and mutual stimulation. The library is par excellence alive, not static but dynamic through the movement of ideas and the people who serve it, the librarians who are at the service of the book people, the readers. In short, the ideal of a public library is to become a community space, the heart of a community. Although it seems hard to believe, reading improves the life of a community. The public readings supported by the librarians and their partners in various spaces and institutions (kindergartens, schools, hospitals, elderly homes, companies, shops, public squares, parks, theaters, performance halls, on the radio, etc.) practically mean a cultural offer of quality, guiding book choices, forming tastes, and fulfilling the need for relaxation and entertainment.
Our vision is for the library to be an accessible, useful, and friendly place for all, becoming a community development center and a true symbol of local cultural identity.
Collections, departments, and branches
Collections
The ‘George Bariţiu’ County Library Braşov offers to its users: books, albums, guides, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers and magazines, databases, audio books and e-books, atlases, and scores. Library users can borrow at home and consult on-site the newest and most current publications in all fields. Children’s books include volumes with musical applications, very attractive pop-up illustrations that allow easy learning of foreign languages (French, English), and comics. The library has volumes in foreign languages organized into separate departments: the English Library, the French Media Library, and the Hungarian Library. There is also a series of Daisy books for visually impaired people, as well as the necessary listening and reading devices, which can be borrowed at home. Along with the books, the library has toys and strategic intelligence games. There are collections of music recorded on vinyl discs and audio CDs, the latest American, British, French, etc. art films, DVDs of documentary films, and art performances. The library’s art gallery has paintings by contemporary Brasov artists as well as by master painters.
Departments
