The relevance of the topic is connected with the experience of military libraries during the Great Patriotic War and the determination of promising areas of their development at present and future. The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the history of the Leningrad Military Library of the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District in 1936–1947, to identify the factors influenced its work during the war and in the post–war period. The analysis is based on the documents of the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, the archive of the Information Historical and Scientific Center of the Military Historical Library of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the materials of the periodical press. The author considers the stages of reorganization, the main areas of activity, the dynamics of the development of the fund and changes in the library staff during the period under study. For the first time, information on new additions to the fund by type of publications, as well as on the financial support of the library, has been summarized and presented.
