Lugansk regional universal scientific library named after M. Gorky was founded in 1897 as a free of charge public library with a reading hall.
At the beginning the library had only 2502 books, that were not supplied systematically, mostly owing to donations. Without having it's own building, the library constantly changed its address and only in 1945 moved to a new building in Lenin street, 34 and stayed there till 1965.
In 1919, when Lugansk district was founded as a part of Donetsk district, the main library of the city was opened based on the public library. Its staff was increased. The library was a methodology center for all 25 libraries of the district.
In 1923, when Lugansk region was founded, the library became central in the region with the staff of 8 people.
In 1936 the library was named after M. Gorky.
In 1938, based on the main library of the city, the regional library was founded, according to this its functions and fields were expanded. At that time the number of books was 125000.
At the end of 1965 a building for the library was built in Sovetskayast., where the library is situated till now.
Today in the library 17 departments, and 4 resource information centers function. The library is the largest depository collection of editions of local lore study. With the purpose of systematization and acquiring of archives of local writers and others well-known people, the scientific and research work is conducted within the sector of literary historical archive created at the department of the local lore literature.
From the end of the 90s of the last century the library has started to work with the qualitatively new degree of service for the city dwellers: since 1997 it gives the readers an easy access to the Internet, since 2003 it introduced the automatized scheme of library service. The library has close ties with the public and state organizations and establishments, is actively cooperates with donor organizations.
The total number of books for 1 January, 2009 is 1 087113 books, last year the Library serviced about 34 000 readers, visited our Library 212 400 visitors.