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COLLECTIONS

The collections of the Tallinn University Academic Library comprise 2.6 million acquisition units, including 247,000 units of periodicals. The Library subscribes to more than 300 printed magazines and obtains access to nearly 50,000 electronic periodicals and 70,000 e-books a year. Universal collections contain information entities from all fields of science, with the main emphasis on the acquisition of entities in humanities and social and natural sciences.

Main collection
The main collection of the Library contains printed books published since 1945. The repositories on six mezzanine floors hold about 18,000 linear metres of shelves. The main collection includes literature in Estonian and foreign languages, including books, periodicals, maps, musical scores, and manuscripts.

Baltica cultural history collection
The Baltica collection is a scientific collection that contains printed publications in Estonian and foreign languages published before 1944. The collection holds 361,000 units of books, newspapers and magazines, including 46 volumes of incunabula from the 15th century, 2,000 volumes from the 16th century, 7,500 volumes from the 17th century and 19,000 volumes from the 18th century, and a photograph collection. Besides the aforementioned items, the cultural history collection also includes small-run or self-published prints, geographic maps and atlases, musical scores, graphics, bookplates, etc.

Estonian Expatriate Literature Centre
The collections of expatriate Estonian printed publications (books, magazines, newspapers, small newspapers, reprints of research papers, small-run or self-published prints, rota print publications, audio recordings, microfilms) cover printed materials published in various countries by Estonians who fled to the West from Estonia in 1944 and their descendants, as well as documents related to expatriate Estonians and Estonianness. The collection is one of the most complete ones in its area, particularly with regard to expatriate Estonian periodicals. The most unique part of the latter comprises printed materials published in Estonian refugee camps in Germany in 1944–1950 – newspapers, magazines and small papers, study materials, fiction and how-to books. These are mostly the only copies of small-run publications. The collection of expatriate Estonian printed media holds 31,000 units and is run by the Estonian Expatriate Literature Centre.

Digital collections
The TLU Academic Library is naturally not limited to physical media only. Our readers have access to several hundred thousand e-books, e-magazines, e-reports and scientific articles. Readers can browse the digital collections, including the licensed databases, free of charge at the Library, via the University’s computer network or by logging in using the University e-mail user account (e-databases).

Our main emphasis is on scientific databases that contain articles and other materials which are of great help to both students and researchers.

The Library databases contain the University’s Master’s and doctoral theses, expatriate Estonian periodicals, personal histories, digitised older newspapers, books of our unique Baltica and early book collection, pictures and maps (see e.g. Hortus Librorum).

E-research library ETERA is a digital library of TLU Academic Library, aimed at gathering and preserving information. ETERA contains both old and new books, magazines, newspapers, photos, postal cards, maps, study materials, and theses defended at the Tallinn University.
The materials in ETERA fall within all kinds of areas of Estonian science. ETERA can be used in all computers and smart devices without having to download additional software.

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