Crisis phenomena in the cultural and spiritual sphere of the modern society make it necessary to turn to the historical experience of cultural life. Coverage of the public initiative, its support by the state and the promotion of the establishment and activities of educational centers will help to rethink the experience, which will facilitate the search for ways of reviving culture, charity and enlightenment traditions. Thus, arguing the relevance of the declared theme, the authors presented information about the creation of a public library reading room in the district center of Kyiv province - the city of Uman. Having worked out the annual sets of two provincial newspapers - “Kievlyanin” (“Kyiv citizen”) and “Life and Art”, the authors systematized the materials published in them about the Uman Public Library Reading Room. The article draws attention to the multiethnic nature of Uman, because the initiators of the reading room were Jewish youth, to the difficulty of opening a reading library, which emerged as a result of the implementation of a public initiative. The sources of public reading room funding, among which donations of rich people prevailed, have been identified. Based on newspaper reports, it has been shown that the role of management in opening and maintaining a library-reading room has not been significant. It has been emphasized that the very fact of publication of materials about the Uman Public Library Reading Room on the pages of provincial newspapers, which had a large distribution area, testifies to the importance of its formation, and to the dissemination of the experience of such public initiative manifestation. The conclusions of the article summarize that the newspapers "Kievlyanin" and "Life and Art" need a comprehensive research as a source of library affairs study in the territory of Ukraine in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, as well as cultural enlightenment in general.