Department of Estonian Literature
Department of Estonian Literature is located at the main building of Tallinn Central Library Estonia ave. 8. Their services include homelending, children's services and reading room services. The services for the patrons in a wheelchair are available upon request (call 68..., e-mail muusika[at]tln dot lib dot ee). It's recommendable for disabled people to be accompanied by a friend or a relative.
Homelending
Homelending is located on the second floor of the main building. The patrons have open access to the collection - approximately 110 000 items. Nearly half of the collection is fiction. If the title you need is currently checked out it is possible to reserve it (non-fiction only). Reserves on library materials may be made in person or e-mail. You need to fill in the reservation form and when a book you have reserved arrives in the library you will be notified either by e-mail or by phone (the phone call expenses are paid by a borrower). The reserved materials are held for you at the library for two days, starting from the time of notification. Borrowing rules.
Children and youth service
The Children and Youth Division is located on the ground floor of the main building. Children and Youth Services maintains a substantial children's book collection and assists parents, teachers and children in locating appropriate materials. Fiction is arranged in three groups: up to grade 3, grades 4-6 and grades 7-9. A wide variety of newspapers and magazines is offered. Children and youngsters can spend their leisure time by playing games, solving puzzles and drawing. There are three internet workstations and one computer for a catalogue search. The Children and Youth Division also conduct library learning tours.
Reference Reading Room
The Reading Room is located on the second floor of the main building. The Reading Room contains a large variety of reference books, dictionaries, handbooks, textbooks, non-fiction books, legal acts and fiction books from the schools lists of mandatory literature. In the Reading Room you can find current year magazine issues as well as newspapers and magazines of previous years. The current year's newspapers are in the Periodical Room (on the ground floor, separate entrance).
Librarians provide assistance with the search of information, show you how to use reference sources. The Reading Room provides reference services on all subjects. It is also possible to make an inter-library loan (items not owned by the Library) request from other libraries in Estonia.
There is one terminal for the online library catalogue search, 9 workstations and 3 laptops for the internet use. Reservation: 6830 917 . If you don't have a reservation, it's possible to use a queue-up computer (15 minutes). One workstation is reserved for a user in a wheelchair. Printing and copying are charged services.
Balcony Hall
| Opening hours: | Wed 15.30 - 17.30 |
| | On the other days it's possible to reserve books to the reference reading room.
Reserves on balcony hall old books may be made in person or via e-mail. |
| Phone: | 683 0917 |
| E - mail: | ls[at]tln dot lib dot ee |
Old books collection at the balcony hall of the Central Library was opened to the readers in December 2007. There you can find literature that was published between the years of 1802-1940 in Estonian and foreign languages.
The books that originally belong to the former archival collection, make up the majority of the collection. The book selection keeps on growing on behalf of the old books of branch libraries and home lending departments. Our readers can find nearly 2100 copies and 1800 titles of old books in the balcony hall. All the literature can be found through Online Catalogue ESTER.
48% of the books in the balcony hall are fiction. 58% of them are in Estonian, 42% of the whole collection is made up of foreign literature from witch the majority is written in German and in their original binding. Some of the books could be unique in Estonia, so as the other libraries have not described all of their old books to the Online Catalogue ESTER. You can also find interesting autographs, inscriptions, marks of ownership, book labels and stamps there.
The collection of old books is located on the third floor of our main building to the balcony hall. (Estonia Ave. 8) .
See also: opening hours
