The Ürümqi City Library (, ) is a public library situated in the Shuimogou, Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. The Urumqi City Library was established in 1979, although it lacked a permanent location until it relocated to its current building in 2003. In 2018, it was designated as the National first-class library.
History.
In September 1979, the Urumqi City Library was officially founded, initially including a librarian and seven staff members. For over 20 years since its inception, Urumqi City Library has encountered the predicament of lacking a physical location. Initially, the Urumqi City Library leased fewer than 30 square meters of meeting rooms from the Urumqi Municipal Bureau of Culture for office space and book collection. Subsequently, it relocated to the basement of a printing factory, and in 1981, it utilized the upper room of as a temporary bookstore while establishing a boarding house in the courtyard of the former residence for office purposes. And borrowed from Zhongshan Road, a rustic home providing literature. The Urumqi City Library has relocated to 14 different venues, including manufacturing workplaces, school classrooms, and private basements. Consequently, the residents of Urumqi referred to the Urumqi City Library as a "listed library" or "guerrilla library." Due to the absence of a permanent location, the Urumqi Library possessed a collection of 230,000 books in 2001; however, only approximately 10,000 books were disseminated, while the remainder remained packed and sealed.
This persisted until 2005. Construction of the new Urumqi Library commenced in October 2003, and on September 28, 2005, the Urumqi Library, together with the Urumqi Museum, was relocated to the library's museum facility on Nanhu South Road in the Urumqi City, Shumogou District, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. On August 13, 2018, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism designated the Urumqi City Library as a national-level library.
In 2023, the Urumqi City Library had a refurbishment and was inaugurated for public access.