National Institution University and Public library “Goce Delchev”- Stip, North Macedonia, is a Home of books, friendly corner of our everyday life, where Wisdom, Beauty, Humanity, Knowledge, Experiences gathered from centuries, New civilization trends, Imagination, Reality and Virtuality are hosted in one place. So, if you try to lower your voice and breath, you could hear their silent, steady whisper. They call YOU, regardless of your age, gender, ethnical dependence, education, religious, social position, to come and to share with them one portion of your spare time, to those silent and loyal to you friends. They will never betray you and your spiritual needs.

The Library’s general activities and mission objektives are:

• to promote and spread up education, knowledge and nice leisure - time

• to meet the cultural needs of the citizens, regardless of their ethnical, language, religion, gender, social group and education level dependence

• to give its contribution on promotion of professional, scholarly researches and development of education, culture, science, economy and citizenship

• Student reading room offers a large selection of books from the project TRANSLATION 1,000 titles of globally renowned expert textbooks prestigious world universities. Moreover, this reading room equipped free-to-use computers, individual reading rooms and with over 540 titles of books in the field of law, science, medicine, economics, agriculture, criminologists, liberal arts and other themes.

The National Institution – Library “Goce Delchev” – Shtip was established in 1872, as a result of a private initiative and donations of the local population. They established the First Reading Room that was consisted of carefully selected bookcollections, mostly educational and religious. The First Reading Room Statute regulated the objectives and goals of the Reading Room.

The objectives were: fight against the illiteracy, fight for spiritual independence from The Carigrad-Greek Patriarchy and spiritual upgrading of the citizens through the efforts to rise up the level of education. The Reading Room provided student scholarships for young students to educate in European Turkey and that was one of the methods to create a critical intellectual capacity that could be able to fight against assimilating efforts by the Bulgarian, Serbian and Greek policies.

The Reading Room also had a humanitarian task: to help the poor scholars from Shtip region by providing books, notebooks and other school materials and sometimes even food.

The establishing of the Reading Room meant a beginning of a new era of cultural renaissance of the town and Region.

In 1880 this Reading Room contributed in establishment of the first school library.

The Library reached its triumph 76 years latter, in 1945 when North Macedonians gained the right to use their own, mother language, their own national culture. In 1945 this library is renamed in Public Library. The library collection was modest, consisted of approximately 1000 book titles. Lead by the growing need of the users, the Library organized several successful campaigns for private book donations in order to enrich the librarian collections.

Since it’s foundation and up-todate, the contribution of the Library in the education and cultural processes of young peoples and long life education for the rest of the citizens, is notable.

In its history the Library’s location was changed several times, the final move occurred in 1978 when it was relocated to the new, modern building of 2000 square meters.

The architecture, old North Macedonia style is successfully incorporated in the very center of Shtip in the neighborhood environment of one primary and two high schools; it also has an installation to easy the approach of disabled citizens.