Central District Library of the town of Ustyuzhna is one of the oldest one in the Vologda Region. Its short history is the following:

On the 10th of September 1883 the  Ustyuzhna Assembly of Zemstvo examined a proposition of the director of the Cherepovets Teacher Seminary about founding a Teacher Library attached to (under) the Zemstvo. Zemstvo   accepted it and gave 150 roubles for setting the library up. Next six months funds for the library reached 580 roubles according to the System Resolution Yearbook of Zemstvo Assemblies of Ustyuzhna County Zemstvo for 35 years ...1865-1899.V.1, p. 271. The day of the library inauguration is not known exactly. Very likely that it happened in November or December in 1883 as documented in  a note in magazine of the Zemstvo Assembly for 1901 year. The magazine is still kept in the holdings of the Ustyuzhna Regional Study Museum. It says "The library is founded according a resolution of the Zemstvo Assembly in 1883 and is permitted to be open to public by the Novgorod Governor  the same year".

In 1901 the Encyclopedia by Brokgauz & Efron was added to the holdings in 60 volumes. In 1903 the library had 2 284 books of a cost of 3 000 roubles and was subscribed to 12 periodicals. The library report for the Zemstvo Assembly said : " The  book collection is  built so well     that any library would be proud of it". 136 officers of the Zemstvo used the collection and book circulation was about 3 216 a year. By 1911 the holdings had reached  4 608 volumes. In 1910 the number of users increased to 236 and the book circulation was  7 378.

In parallel to this library, closed to the population but free for the Zemstvo employers, from  the 14th of April 1986 an other library was established. It was named after Pompei Nikolaevich Batyushkov who was a big official and an author of books on ethnography, archeology of the Western Russia, a brother of a famous poet. This library was founded by the Batyushkov's widow to immortalize his memory. The library was based on the family book collection.  She also undertook to give 200 rubles a year for acquisitions. The Zemstvo was obliged to maintain the library building and pay a salary in 10 rubles a month to a librarian. The name of the new library was rather pathetic: Popular Library-Reading Room named after P. Batyushkov. To tell the true it was not really popular at that time. From the beginning the Zemstvo fixed up an annual   fee for borrowing the books. First the annual fee was 50 kopeek plus 50 kopeek a deposit. Later on  the fee  became 1 rouble a year. In fact the library was not affordable for the  working population. In 1897 there were only 82 patrons using the library.

Anyhow, its Reading Room was free of charge. From the other hand the report dated 1899 declared that there were only 231 visits to the reading room during the year. "They were all teachers...Quite often the Reading Room was simply empty. Our inhabitants are not accustomed to using the Reading Room."

Later on and until 1911 the number of users never was above 100. At this time the money from the heirs of Batyushkov for library maintenance ceased. The Zemstvo, finding itself unable to fund two libraries in Ustyuzhna, made a decision to close them in 1911 and on the 5th of April 1912  opened  just one instead. It was the Zemstvo Public Library named after Pompei Batyushkov. Its holdings were rather impressive and in 1914 it contained 7 559 volumes. A printed catalogue of this period  has been preserved. Altogether with religious books and real books there were also wonderful books on history, literature and art.

However, this new library actually was also non-affordable for most of the people in the town. The deposit was 1 ruble and the annual fee was increased to 3 rubles for a patron. Use of the County Public Library was announced free of charge only after the revolution of 1917. This library also got books from the Trustee Committee of Public Sobriety.  Also it acquired several private libraries including the library of a  former Ustyuzhna Uprava chairman A. Kolobakin.

From 1927 the library got its district status and from 1932 it established a couple of new departments, a children's department and a travelling book collection.

In 1979 to develop the library service the libraries in Ustyuzhna district were centralized. Therefore a number of new departments in the district library were set up such as an Acquisition department,  a
Management department and   a Department of United Holdings Organization and Use.

During the past 100 years the  number of the patrons have increased to 3 500 in the District library and to 2 400 in the Children's library. Once in 1897 there were only 82 visitors to the library per year, but now 100 and more patrons visit the library per day.

The library has become one of the mostly frequent visited institutions of culture in the town. According the results of the questionnaire that was made by Finnish professionals the library is the mostly significant institution among the all social services of the town. The inhabitants of Ustyuzhna gave a grade "good" or "very good" evaluating the library service filling the questionnaire.

At the end of 1995 the library moved to a new well-restored building that is a monument of architecture of the XIX century located on the Trade Square of the town.

The holdings consist about 70 000 volumes. To better show all its richness to the patrons the library uses traditional methods - Knowledge Days, Information Days, Library Lessons, Literature Meetings, Book Reviews, etc.  and new non-standard methods, demanding an active participation of the patrons. This are different competitions, intellectual and perception games, repeating some very popular TV shows; business games, acting games, meetings with interesting people. Many special events of the library   take place not only inside of the library walls but also at the town schools and colleges.

Among the library patrons are children, students, working youth and intelligentsia, retired people. During several years there are several clubs at the library as Veteran, White Stick, Literature Circle, Teenager and Low, Press-club uniting the people according their hobbies.  For more than 10 years the library became the place for  weekly meetings of the blind people belonging to the club White Stick mentioned above. Regulars are the families with many children - club "Family Album".