Elžbieta Jodinskaitė was the first director of the library, although at that time her position was the head of the Central Bookshop. It was she who, on 01 September 1922, issued the first book to a reader at home from the Panevėžys Bookshop.

Elžbieta Jodinskaitė was born in the Pasvalys district, at the Švobiškis manor in 1877. After her studies, she resided in the family of the linguist Jonas Jablonskis, where she became acquainted with the Lithuanian press and became involved in its distribution, as well as in the Lithuanian National Revival movement. After selling her inherited Švobiškis manor, she supported talented students. Later on, while working as a librarian, she allocated money for studies and intensively studied library work by visiting Lithuanian libraries and congresses. The library she founded swiftly expanded its collections, and Elžbieta Jodinskaitė became an influential teacher of librarians. Moreover, she has gained experience working in the Shlisselburg (Russia) library, which contributed to her appointment as the head of the Panevėžys library.

According to her contemporaries, Elžbieta Jodinskaitė’s home had a large collection of cactuses she had collected. After the opening of the reading room named after her, a collection of cactuses was also started to be collected here, and fascinating cactuses were gifted by guests to this reading room on its opening day.

The reading room has both individual workstations for working with personal computers and space for groups of three to five people. This is the place where personal book collections of famous people, which were kept in the Storage until now, begin a new life. From the seventeen personal libraries and book collections stored in the library, nine are held in the Local History Reading Room of Elžbieta Jodinskaitė. These are the personal libraries of the writer, publisher, and public figure of the British Lithuanian community Kazimieras Barėnas, and the philosopher and public figure Arvydas Šliogeris. Also, the book collections of the translator and literary scholar Laimutė Rapšytė, the theatre and film actors Stasys Petronaitis and Regina Zdanavičiūtė, Monsignor Juozapas Antanavičius, the priest Algirdas Dauknys, the literary scholar Vanda Zaborskaitė, the pedagogues and writers Elena Gabulaitė and Aleksandra Šilgalytė, as well as Esperanto books collections of the bibliophile Rimgaudas Banys, and Palmira Lukoševičienė
and Telesforas Lukoševičius. The books in the collections are marked with various bookplates, such as book owners’ inscriptions, stamps, dedications, autographs, and ex-libris.

The wall of the reading room is decorated with chamotte tablets—dedications to Panevėžys literary figures. This is a gift to the library from the Panevėžys artists Henrikas Mazūras and Giedrius Mazūras.

Walk to the other side of the reading room behind the workstations.