Its opening was preceded by two articles in Turkestanskie vedomosti newspaper (The Turkestan Bulletin) (issue No. 1 dated April 28, 1870 and No. 2 dated May 21, 1870). However, the exact opening date is not specified anywhere. The Ministry of Public Education, the Academy of Sciences, the Public Library, the Geographical Society and the General Staff of Russia donating duplicate editions from their book depositories provided assistance in organizing the Library fund. By May 1870, more than 2 200 volumes (1 200 titles) had been collected, thus forming the basis of the future library.
The Tashkent Public Library collected and kept literature on various subject areas primarily related to the region and neighboring countries. The Russian bibliographer Vladimir Izmailovich Mezhov was involved in this work. He collected data about Turkestan, which laid the foundation for Turkestanskii Sbornik (The Turkestan Collection), widely known in academic circles.
Established in 1883, the Supervisory Committee of the library included at different times such famous scholars, teachers, historians and ethnographers as N. A. Mayev, N. V. Dmitrovsky, A. A. Semyonov, A. A. Divayev, N. G. Malitsky and others. The Committee provided invaluable support in the development of the library. During this period, the famous Turkestan Album was created, one of the richest sources of visual information about Central Asian cultural monuments as they existed in the 19th century. The compilation of this unique photo album was entrusted to the Russian orientalist Alexander Ludvigovich Kuhn.
In 1920, the Library achieved the status of a state institution. Since that year, it started to receive obligatory copies of all issues published in the Turkestan territory. In 1925, the Library fund numbered 140 thousand items.
You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "The Manuscript and Book Heritage of the National Library of Uzbekistan named after Alisher Navoi" (Volume XLI) in the series "The Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan".
The main sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.