The City of Turku offers library services in the Main Library, 10 local libraries and two mobile libraries.

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Library statistics

Statistics of Turku City Library from 2024. (in Finnish)

Kirjaston infograafi 2024. (Picture: Noora Yrttiaho)

Statistics of Turku City Library from 2023.  (in Finnish)

Infographic of the library's statistics 2023. (Picture: Frida-Maria Pessi)

Library strategy

The core values of Turku City Library are equality, responsibility and well-being. As a library, we want to offer our customers a diverse view of the world. Our goal is to make our services easily accessible and share information about them clearly and actively. We also want to improve our services by listening to our customers, as we are here for you. 
 

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Culture Card

The library card also serves as a Culture Card. It gives you access to benefits, special offers, and up-to-date information on the many cultural events in City of Turku. Contact customer service to add the Culture Card feature to your library card.

Learn more about Culture Card

Green Library

The library is a well-known example of the circular economy, helping customers live sustainably. You don’t need to own everything when you can borrow books, games, instruments, and other items from the library, or use them there. The more you borrow instead of buying, the more you save both nature and money. Libraries guide people to the right information, take action on climate issues, and help their customers live more sustainably.

Learn more about Green Library in the Vaski web library, opens in a new tab (in…

Library history

A brief history of Turku City Library.

  1. 1
    1860s Turku City Library originated from the People’s Library and the City Library, founded with private funds

    1878 The city took over the library. 

  2. 2
    1912 The City Library and the People’s Library officially became Turku City Library.

    1914 Children got their own reading room and lending section .

  3. 3
    1939 Turku got its first branch library
  4. 4
    1961 Finland’s first mobile library started operating in Turku

    1970 A music section opened in the Main Library. 

  5. 5
    2007 The new Main Library was introduced. 
Learn more about the library’s history

Read more about the origins and interesting history of Turku City Library.  

History of Turku City Library 

Library publications

Publications of Turku City Library.  

Libraries and knowledge management

Report on a project funded by the Regional State Administrative Agency. Among other things, the project explored the views and objectives related to knowledge management in libraries. Concrete development goals included training in the Power BI visualisation programme and defining requirements for a floating collection management system.

Courage from the Vaski community

Report of a project implemented with AVI funding. The project's objectives were, among other things, to strengthen interactive customer service, identify challenges in meeting customers, and identify attitudes and values ​​related to service culture. An important development target in the project was a sense of belonging and broader cooperation in Vaski libraries.

Bibliotheca sweater

The patterns on the Bibliotheca sweater are inspired by the old library building of Turku City Library, Bibliotheca, and its details. The model sweaters were knitted with the Paimio-based Vuonue’s Pentti yarn and the Turku-based ILO’s Aara Helmi and Käpy yarns.  

Knitting pattern for the Bibliotheca sweater

Library products for sale

  • Vaski plastic bag EUR 2 

  • Vaski non-woven bag EUR 3 

  • Postcards EUR 1–2 

  • Kirjoista kokoelmaksi (From a book to a collection) book EUR 35 

  • Bibliotheca bag (designed by Saana and Olli) EUR 23 
     

Ihminen nojaa seinään, hellehattu peittää kasvot,Bibliotheca-kangaskassi on olkapäällä (Picture: Olli Sallinen)