GENERAL INFORMATION
Servicing a Free People and Free Science
Turku University Library is one of the largest academic libraries in Finland. The Library is open to everyone its main function being to support research, teaching and studying at the University of Turku.
Service Takes Many Forms
The resources of the Turku University Library as well as borrowing and information services are available to everyone. There are also reading rooms and group work facilities available for public in various library units.
The Service Desks will direct you to the correct sources of information. The library staff will help you to use the library databases, assist with your requests and lend you books, journals and other materials. You will get help with general enquiries at any Service Desk. You can always contact the Information Services for more complicated requests, including subject-specific searches and database searches. The Information Services is also in charge of the information literacy teaching at the University. Interlibrary Services provides customers with materials from all over the world.
Close to Science
Turku University Library consists of a Main Library, a Course Book Library and three Discipline Specific Libraries situated on the campuses near the customers.
The Main Library is located on the University Hill. In the underground stocks there are thousands of books, journals and other materials, including the Fennica Collection and other valuable collections. The Course Book Library offers customers material needed for degree requirements.
The Discipline Specific Libraries and their units provide customers subject-specific services and materials. There are three Discipline Specific Libraries:
- Anthropos (pedagogics, social sciences, law, economic sciences)
- Logos (humanities)
- Protos (medicine, dentistry, nursing science, mathematics and science)
There is also a European Documentation Centre at the Turku University Library. It is the oldest Finnish Deposit Library of the European Union. The University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University and Turku University of Applied Sciences have a joint ICT Library.
Extensive and Diverse Resources
The Library has one of the largest collections of books and journals in Finland, 60 kilometers altogether. Based on the Legal Deposit Act Turku University Library receives free copies of all publications printed in Finland since 1919. These publications form the Fennica Collection. More information on the printed materials can be found in the Volter Library Database: https://volter.linneanet.fi/webvoyeng.htm
Turku University Library e-resources cover all disciplines. E-resources are primarily intended to University staff and students via the Nelli Portal: http://www.nelliportaali.fi
The collections are constantly updated with new scientific e-resources as well as printed material from new books and journals to rare old paper prints.
Golden Library
Turku University Library was founded in 1921. By then the Library had received 100,000 books mainly as donations. The Legal Deposit Act of 1919 also secured the future growth of domestic printed materials.
Both the Library and the University were first situated in the former Phoenix Hotel by the Market Square. In 1954, the Main Library moved up to the University Hill. The new library building was funded by Turku-born brothers K. F. Joutsen and A. F. Johnsson, who made their fortune in the Klondike Gold Fields.
The University has expanded to cover six faculties. Thus, also the Library has grown into a multidiscipline Library. The Library and Information Services of Turku School of Economics, founded in 1950, emerged with Turku University Library in January 2010.