The moment 1818 can be considered the first great victory of the Romanian language used as basis of the Romanian education process. Until then, learning had been performed in Greek and Latin, the Romanian students being sent to study abroad. There was not yet a school to prepare engineers in the country, studying in Romanian language. The beginnings of this process were discontinuous, until prince A. I. Cuza's period of reformations, when the first Romanian engineering school was firmly created.

The first attestation of the Library, which exists in the institution archives, was an address from the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce and Public Administration, of February 16th 1868, which communicated the following to the school principal: “We offer you 28 copies from different publications, noted on the opposite page, to be included within the library which will be created in this school”. One month later, the same sender added: “... the offered books will be registered into the school inventory and classified in different categories by the library.” This is a genuine document of the library foundation. Besides, the teaching process would not have been possible without a library, which looked mostly as a collection of the most important books for the students and the professors of those times. Some years later, in 1881, the School of Bridges and Highways passed through several forms, continuing to function for 40 years. Almost at the same time, the Romanian Polytechnical Society appeared, as a natural result of the national engineering development.

The 1885 Bulletin of the Romanian Polytechnical Society discussed the necessity of a library. Its purpose was that all its members to be put in contact with all the achievements in engineering and architecture in the neighbouring countries. The building in Calea Grivitei was inaugurated in 1886; it lodged the rector's office for many years. Here was planned to be lodged the library and it really existed there , with one reading-hall for 40 readers. From 28 books and 40 readers, a long way has been run through. In time, the library became a powerful mark for the students professional formation.

Nowadays, the library is a solid structure of great complexity, which holds on its shelves not only the most important scientific works of all the protagonists of the Romanian polytechnical school, but also the most representative scientific works of world-wide engineering. Almost 1,5 million of library units structured in relation with the fundamental and special disciplines of the school supports the didactic process, addressing equally to the teaching staff, engineers and scientific reaserchers of the school.


At the end of October 1998, UPB Central Library reached the age of 130 years of documentary attestation, this moment joining an other very important one : 180 years since the foundation of the engineering education in Romania. In 1818  Gheorghe Lazar inaugurated the engineering courses in Romanian, in order to  prepare engineers in Romania. Such courses had also existed before Gheorghe Lazar, organized by Gheorghe Asachi at Iasi.