Kristina Rallmann
Headquarters 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

 No finances for new literature
 No directions
 No specialised librarians
 Classification of books and circulation system
did not exist

 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”

 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 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

 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

 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

 It was advertised a campaign “Give a book for
soldier”
 40 000 books were gathered
 We got only fiction, not military literature

 Libraries of units worked individually
 Problems and concerns were identical
 An idea of formulating a one central defence
force libary turned up

 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

 Preliminary plan was to start with 3 different
fields of operation:
1. Creating the set of defence force libraries
2. To be ready for developing into a central
library of the defence forces
3. Start with Estonian military bibliographic
database

 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

14 libraries joined with us

 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

 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

http://www.biblioserver.com/kaitse/
 Started to compose in 2007 in collaboration
with Baltic Defence College library

 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

 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)

 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!