40 years of library services in the Carelia building on the Joensuu campus, part 1

The Joensuu Campus Library of the University of Eastern Finland is located in the Carelia building, which turned forty years old in 2025. Over the decades, the library’s facilities and services have undergone changes. Now we are once again on the threshold of a new transformation: the campus development project will bring new actors into the building.

In the upcoming semester, we will celebrate the forty-year-old library space with a series of blog posts. We will also share information about the changes that will come to the facilities as part of the campus development project.

Library facilities to the university’s new main building

When the University of Joensuu (then Joensuun korkeakoulu, ”Joensuu College”) was founded in 1969, the library did not yet have its own premises. However, collections for the future university and library had already begun to be assembled in 1966, immediately after the Parliament decided to establish the university. The Kalevala Society organized the first collection, and after that, several parties expressed their willingness to support the new “Karelian University.” Book collections and donations played a central role in the library’s early years, as funds for acquisitions were scarce.

The donated books were initially stored in a warehouse provided for the purpose in the provincial government building. The library was able to officially start its operations in June 1970 in the university building on Tulliportinkatu, in the premises of the discontinued Eastern Finland Seminary (Itä-Suomen seminaari). The library facilities—a reading room and two offices—were located on the second floor of the building. The ground floor housed storage facilities. In 1971, renovation of the ground-floor storage into library space began. It was estimated that the library could operate in these premises until 1980. Some relief to the already inadequate library facilities came from the fact that the university had several small departmental libraries and collections.

The young university had a wide range of space requirements. To assess and plan these, the Ministry of Education appointed a negotiation committee for the construction of the University of Joensuu in January 1970. The construction of the library was scheduled for the third building phase. More urgent projects, such as the Department of Biology and teacher training schools, were prioritized ahead of it. The third phase was intended to include a combination of the main library, central administration, large lecture halls, and a cafeteria. As planning progressed, the administration facilities were dropped from the building design. Instead, a combined large auditorium and concert hall was added. The chief architects were Jan Söderlund and Erkki Valovirta.

The design of the main library advanced gradually through building plans as well as material, furniture, and equipment planning. On July 31, 1983, President of the Republic Mauno Koivisto laid the cornerstone. The construction company led by S. A. Tervo erected the walls of the new main building and main library for the college, which had by then officially become a university.

In the spring of 1985, the library staff faced a major task: moving books and work equipment to the new premises. About 200,000 volumes had to be transferred, of which almost one-third were unprocessed storage material. The old library had neither the space nor the staff to handle the extensive donated collections.

The new library’s usable floor area was 5,400 square meters, with a total area of over 7,000 square meters. The reading rooms were designed to accommodate about 600 workstations, some scattered between the rows of shelves.

The opening ceremony of the new main library of the University of Joensuu was held on Thursday, June 13, 1985. In addition to the library director and staff, the university’s rectors and representatives of the Foundation for the Promotion of Karelian Culture (Karjalaisen Kulttuurin Edistämissäätiö) were present. The foundation donated a collection of six thousand volumes to the library.

The library was opened to the public the day after the opening ceremony. Until the end of August, the library was open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. During the first week, library introduction sessions were held daily at 9 a.m. At the beginning of the autumn semester, in addition to introductions for students, sessions intended for university staff were planned to be organized by department.

In October 1985, the university’s new main building, named Carelia, was officially inaugurated in its entirety. In his inauguration speech, Rector Kyösti Pulliainen stated that the choice of name was obvious, as this was a university in the Karelian region. The Latin spelling with the letter C reflected academic tradition.

The university’s main library now had new, modern facilities. However, the arrangement of collections and the adequacy of space were issues the library had to address as early as the 1990s. In the next part of this series, we will discuss the history of the University of Joensuu’s main library from the late 1980s to the 2000s.

Sources:

Joensuun yliopiston kirjasto 30 vuotta: Joensuun yliopiston kirjaston 30-vuotisjuhlajulkaisu. Joensuun yliopiston kirjasto 2000.

Mikko Meriläinen, information specialist
Riitta Porkka, head of services
Collection services