Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Established	1714
Location	Saint Petersburg
Collection
Size	20.5 million (central collection)
Access and use
Population served	employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences and scholars with higher education
Other information
Director	Valery Leonov
Website	http://www.rasl.ru
Map

The Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russian: Библиотека Российской академии наук (БАН)) is a large state-owned Russian library based in Saint Petersburg on Vasilievsky Island and open to employees of institutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences and scholars with higher education. It is a part of the academy and includes, besides the central collection, the library collections housed by specialized academic institutions in Saint Petersburg and other cities.

The library was founded in Saint Petersburg by a decree of Peter I in 1714 and subsequently included into the structure of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Since 1747 all academic institutions and since 1783 all publishers in the country have been legally obliged to provide the library with a free copy of each published item.

In 1728-1924 its collections were stored in the building of Kunstkamera, with which it had formed a single academic institution until 1803. In the 1920s the library received many items confiscated during nationalization in Soviet Russia.

In 1924-1925 the collections were transferred to the new building built for the library in 1914 and occupied by a military hospital during the First World War.

During the siege of Leningrad in 1941-1944 the collections stayed in the besieged city and the library was open.

On February 15, 1988, the library suffered the most catastrophic fire in its history which destroyed or damaged a considerable part of the collections.

Before the fire, as of October 1, 1986, the collection of the library and libraries subordinate to it consisted of 17,288,365 items.[1]

Collections

Russian Literature collections

The collection of domestic publications is located in 17 book depositories on eight half-floors of the main building of the Library. According to the types of publications, the national fund consists of books and brochures, periodicals and continuing publications, and abstracts. Special types of documents are included in a separate subfond, called the collection of literature for group processing and storage.

The literature of the main fund is universal in content. The national fund is intended for permanent storage and constitutes the largest part of the literature stored in the Library. All publications of the national fund are reflected in the central catalogs of the Library.

The main part of the domestic fund (about 70%) is made up of books and brochures published in our country from 1826 to the present. Russian editions of books published before 1826 are kept in the Rare Books Department.

About 30% of the national fund is made up of periodicals and continuing publications in Russian and other languages of our country. The periodicals of the national fund are represented by scientific journals and continuing editions of the Academies of Sciences, scientific societies, higher educational institutions for the pre-revolutionary, Soviet periods, up to the present time. In addition to scientific journals, the fund also contains literary and artistic, socio-political and popular science publications.

The most historically valuable parts of the Russian collection are Russian books and brochures of the 19th - early 20th centuries. and domestic periodicals and continuing publications for the same period.

Domestic books and brochures

This part of the fund was formed in the 19th century and forms a book collection and arranged in a systematic manner on the basis of the classification developed by the director of the Russian branch, academician A.A. Kunikom. The fund is organized by branches of knowledge in accordance with the ideas of that time and contains literature obtained on the basis of the so-called legal deposit. Many editions have leather bindings, are beautifully designed and engraved. At the beginning of the 20th century, inventory and partly formatted arrangements were adopted, introduced by the director, academician A.A. Shakhmatov. Since 1930, the book collections of Russian literature have been organized according to a single format-chronological arrangement.

Domestic periodicals and continuing publications

The fund contains periodicals of the oldest scientific societies, including "Scientific Notes of the Russian Technical Society" (1867–1917), which published articles by prominent Russian scientists D.I. Mendeleev, P.N. Yablochkova et al., "Journal of the Russian Physicochemical Society" (1869-1930), on the pages of which the works of the largest representatives of Russian science were placed: A.S. Popova, N.A. Menshutkina, N.D. Zelinsky and others.

The collection contains complete sets of magazines published by Russian revolutionary democrats, including Sovremennik, Otechestvennye zapiski, edited by N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Nekrasov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and others; sets of Russian satirical magazines from 1905-1906 and a number of other pre-revolutionary publications.

Library of the historian and philologist, academician A.A. Kunika

The national fund includes several private collections. The largest of them is the personal library of Arist Aristovich Kunik, a famous historian and long-term director of the Russian branch of the BAN. The books of this collection bear the security stamp “From the books of A.A. Kunika ". This collection contains literature on the history of Russia and Scandinavia, rare editions and Russian books of the 18th century. A.A. Kunik also collected brochures on various topics, reprints, clippings of articles from magazines, bound them and created thematic convolutes. A.A. Kunika was processed in the late 1920s with funds allocated to work with the unencrypted fund of the BAN.

Selected book collections of the national fund

In the 1930s, a collection of literature "group processing and storage" was organized as part of the national fund . This fund is completed, basically, at the expense of that part of the legal deposit of works of the press, which, due to their homogeneity, can be grouped. These include official documentary publications of various organizations, instructional and production materials, GOSTs and OSTs, software and methodological, reference and information and some other similar publications.

A special collection includes literature in the languages of the peoples of the former USSR . This fund was formed during the Soviet period from books and brochures of all peoples that were formerly part of the USSR, as well as publications with parallel and mixed texts in the languages of the peoples of the former USSR. The literature of this collection is presented in 96 languages, including languages that did not have their own written language until 1917, for example, Adyghe, Kara-Kalpak, Evenk and others.

A special collection contains the works of the founders of Marxism-Leninism , including the works of K. Marx, F. Engels, V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin, published in Russian and the languages of the peoples of the USSR, with the exception of the first and rare editions.

Since 1951, a collection of abstracts of dissertations has been formed as part of the main fund, which currently has about half a million copies

Foreign Literature Foundation

The collection of foreign editions of the main storage is located on 4 floors in fourteen book depositories. 25% - books and brochures, 75% - periodicals and continuing publications.

The Foreign Branch of the Library of the Academy of Sciences was based on the book collections of the Pharmaceutical Order, the library of the Dukes of Courland from Mitava. In 1718, the Library received valuable books from the private collections of A.A. Vinius and A. Pitkarn. They included the works of Greek and Latin classics. In 1719 - the meeting of the physician-in-chief of Peter I, director of the Pharmaceutical Order R. Areskin.

In 1741, libraries were acquired: the traveler in Siberia D.G. Messerschmidt, library of the physician Elizaveta Petrovna, the Portuguese Ribeiro Sanchez (Sanchez).

In the 18th century, the Library actively completed its collection through the bookstores of Western European merchants

The collection of foreign editions of the main storage contains samples of various types of bindings, made over almost three centuries: bindings by the master Christian Bitner - the first binder of the academic library (1716-1729), luxurious Dutch and English bindings of historical and artistic value.

At present, along with the modern (format-chronological) arrangement of literature, several historically established arrangement systems have been preserved. The BAN foreign fund includes publications with a large chronological coverage - from 1601 to the present.

Newspaper fund

The newspaper fund of the main storage of the department of funds and services represents the largest part of the newspaper fund of the BAN. It includes:

foreign newspapers from 1730 to the present
Russian pre-revolutionary newspapers from 1825 to 1917
newspapers published in Russia in foreign languages - "Rossika" (1711-1917)
domestic newspapers from 1917 to the present

As a result of the fire in 1988, losses amounted to 0.7% for Russian pre-revolutionary newspapers, Rossika - 33%, Soviet newspapers in the most valuable part of this collection from 1918 to 1954. - 75%, foreign - 7% In addition, more than 15 thousand newspaper sets were affected by water, steam and high temperatures.

All subsequent years, active work was carried out to restore the lost editions with the help of domestic and foreign libraries. As a result, it has already been possible to replenish about 60% of Soviet newspapers, 25% of the collection of "Rossika". This work is ongoing. At the same time, there is an active replenishment of the fund with current newspapers.

The newspaper fund of the main storage is completed:

• at the expense of a legal deposit, the receipt of which has been restored after an almost thirty-year break since 1994;

• through subscription and purchase.

Since 1989 a fund of informal newspapers has been formed. Foreign newspapers are exchanged through the international book exchange sector of the library acquisition department.

Newspapers are served to readers through the reading room of current periodicals. Newspapers are reflected in the information apparatus of the newspaper fund and printed bibliographic indexes.

The newspaper collection of the RAS Library is not limited only to the collection of newspapers in the main storage. Newspapers, although in small numbers of titles, are also available in the specialized collections of the Library.

The publishing department of the Academy of Sciences has a complete set of the newspaper "St. Petersburg Vedomosti" for 1728–1916 . in Russian and German ("St.-Peterburgische Zeitung". 1717 - 1875).

In the department of rare books there is a second set of the same newspaper in the German language for the 1727- 1806 biennium, a set of «Gazette de St.-Peterburg» for 1756. - 1759. and etc.

In the department of Asian and African countries, modern newspapers in the language of these countries and newspapers in eastern languages, which were previously in the special storage, are provided.

In the sector of Russian literature abroad, newspapers in European languages of countries around the world from Australia, Mexico, South Africa, India, and others are stored and provided to readers.

The newspaper collection contains incomplete sets, from the 1920s to the 1980s. XX century and complete sets of newspapers such as «New-York Times» (1917- 1 986 gg.), «Times» (1931-1986 gg.), «Monde» (one thousand nine hundred thirty-two - 1 986 years.) and others.

References

Справочник-путеводитель по сети специальных библиотек ленинградских академических учреждений / Отв. ред. К. В. Лютова. – Ленинград: Библиотека АН СССР, 1987.