The foundation of science begins with the library

The value of valuable books stored in the library of the scientific and production center of grain farm named after A. I. Barayev, over time become increasingly important.

Having specially arrived at the center, we had a conversation with the head of the scientific library Olga Proskura.

- Olga Pavlovna, who often visits your library? As far as I know, this is a very rare collection of books.

- You’re right. This is a unique collection, with very rare books. Each book is a different story. As you have already noticed, there’s a collection of agricultural books here. There is no fund like ours anywhere else. And if you ask who comes here, most of them are researchers, masters and doctoral students. Even scientists often come to us. There are people who come from all over the country in search of unique books. It happens that foreign scientists and researchers come. In particular, they came from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

- You said there are very old books, how old are they? What is their value?

- The library begins with a collection of books from the 1800s. This is the time before the establishment of the Soviet Union. Even then, scientists began to radically engage in agriculture. If you have noticed, their work has not lost its significance and relevance even today. If you look at some of the manuscripts, you will come across some very interesting data. For instance, it is possible to find data on the state of the soil, water regime, selection of cereal crops of those times, which are very relevant for modern scientists and science. I would say that this is the basis of science. Therefore, any book that is here will undoubtedly increase its importance over time. For example, in the rare fund section you can see the scientific projects of Kliment Arkadyevich Timiryazev and his regularly published "Agriculture" magazine in the 1860s, all issues of the journal "Forestry" are also stored, you can even find statements by Charlize Darwin about agriculture. All these are the main values of our library. In addition, there is a collection of manuscripts and scientific dissertations of scientists.

- How did you manage to keep the library?

- We had difficult times when the condition of the scientific center itself, including the library, were deplorable. I worked in the breeding department myself at that time. No one was looking after the library, and the place turned into a cold warehouse. However, no scientist or employee dared to destroy the book fund. They understood that the collection was very valuable.  And so, we are, the employees themselves, were able to save the books from destruction.

Restoration work was done when times improved. But due to lack of funds, the work always stopped. In 2020, our center was integrated into the Kazakh Agrotechnical University named after S.Seifullin. It was at this time that the University administration restored our library with great difficulty and with great funds. Many books were damaged. We have restored them, and sewed some manuscripts with our own hands and put them on the shelves. In addition to old books, we have started ordering agricultural related publications for the library, which are published annually in our country. Even important foreign publications come.

Now we are often visited by students from different universities. We have organized a special reading room for students. It is known that the library has significant importance for science. In this regard, we are doing our best to replenish the book fund. Interestingly, scientists who worked at the center in the past bring us personal book collections. Sometimes we ourselves turn to the descendants of our scientists and ask them to hand over valuable manuscripts to our book fund. We accept the books that are brought to us in a solemn manner and thank for the contribution to the science of our country. It is worth noting that our library is completely electronic. Today it operates on the same basis as the KazATIU library.

- How many books are there?

- The book collection here currently amounts to about 72,500 copies.

- Olga Pavlovna, thank you so much for an interesting interview.

The material is taken from the website https://kazatu.edu.kz/news/gylamny-negizi-kitaphanadan-bastalady