Reading Fiction in the Tomsk City Public Library in the Late 19th — Early 20th Centuries

The relevance of reading is determined by its great role in the life of individual and society, due to its multifunctionality and priority position among other means of education and upbringing. Therefore, its study, including in historical retrospective, is an important area of the modern scientific research. Due to the lack of comprehensive studies of library reading in pre-revolutionary Siberia, this article for the first time examines the fiction books lending in the Tomsk City Public Library in the late 19th — early 20th centuries. The purpose of the article is to analyse the demand for fiction by users of the Tomsk City Public Library during the specified period. The tasks are to determine the share of fiction in the total amount of book lending; to make ratings of the most popular domestic and foreign authors of fiction works.

The authors use methods of comparative analysis, statistical and source studies. Data were collected from ten reports of the Tomsk City Public Library, as well as from its catalogue, that allowed us to recognize the source base of the article as representative. For the first time, the relative and average number of fiction lending was calculated. The obtained results demonstrate that in the late 19th — early 20th centuries the fiction book lending compounds at least two-thirds of all books lending in the Tomsk City Public Library.

The number of fiction lending exceeded the number of lending from other departments by dozens of times. The authors compiled and presented joint and separate ratings of popularity of Russian and foreign authors among users of the library, among whom there were almost only prose writers. It is proven that the works of domestic writers were more in demand among library users, and the percentage of female authors in the top 10 and top 30 was minimal. This study expanded the idea of reading fiction in pre-revolutionary Tomsk, its place in the reading circle and popular authors.

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