College and Research Libraries By O S W A L D P. BACKUS, III Recent Experiences with Soviet Libraries And Archives: Uncommon Resources and Potential for Exchange TR I P S T O T H E S O V I E T Union from near-by Finland in 1957 and 1958 gave the author the opportunity to acquaint himself with some aspects of Soviet li- braries and archives which may be of interest to others. T h e reader should keep in mind the fact that conditions can change rapidly and that, therefore, some of the conclusions presented here may be rapidly invalidated. T h e author's particular concern on his trips was the promotion of exchanges between the Library of the University of Kansas and Soviet libraries. T h e thoughtful reader may wish to compare the author's con- clusions with those in a forthcoming book, Melville }. Ruggles and Vaclav Mostecky, Russian and East European Publications in the Libraries of the United States. This is an unpublished report prepared for the Association of Research Libraries in 1958 which is to be published by Indiana University late in 1959. See especially Chapter 2 (Ac- quisitions). E X C H A N G E S Expansion of exchanges with Soviet libraries is a goal particularly worthy of consideration by librarians of those universities that have decided to estab- lish centers of Russian studies where effective research can be done, especially in the social sciences and humanities. Dr. Backus is Professor of History, University of Kansas. It offers, in addition, a means of securing works in the natural and physical scien- ces. Of New Books. Previous comments and accounts of trading have stressed the trading of contemporary works (i.e., books published from World War II on). They have performed a needed serv- ice. I have come to a few conclusions about trading of new books, periodicals, etc., which differ from current concep- tions: 1. The rate of exchange for calculat- ing the trading value of current publi- cations is eight rubles to one dollar. T h e Lenin Library in Moscow indicated a willingness to trade at this rate, provid- ed sufficient exchanges were forthcom- ing. T h e Academy of Sciences Library in Leningrad acquiesced in respect to the rate of eight to one. 2. Institutes of the Academy of Scien- ces, especially in the humanities and so- cial sciences, have a substantial interest in receiving gifts of books and can be expected to reciprocate. Direct dealings with an institute offer an excellent way of being assured of rapid delivery of institute materials. Such dealings relieve the Library of the Academy of Sciences of much additional paper work and dis- tributional effort. In August 1956, Mr. S. F. Anderson of the department of Germanic and Slavic languages of the University of Kansas travelled to the Soviet Union and there promoted the exchange of publications and microfilms. Since that time the Li- NO V EMBER 1959 469 brary of the University of Kansas has acquired among other things several hundred monographs and a few dozen serials, including substantial runs of Chteniia v obshchestve istorii i drev- nostei rossiiskikh (164 vols.) and Uchen- ye zapiski moskovskago imiversiteta (154 vols.), and complete sets of Izdaniia obshchestva liubitelei drevnei pis'men- nosti (143 vols.) and Pamiatniki obsh- chestva liubitelei drevnei pis'mennosti (212 vols.). Some Soviet libraries wish to exchange book for book, others page for page, and others at dollar equivalents. T h e for- mula makes little difference as long as the net result is satisfactory. Of Old Books. T h e lack of emphasis on trading of old books is an unfortu- nate oversight, for (1) old books are available in large quantities in the So- viet Union, especially in major centers (Moscow and Leningrad) and (2) old books must be obtained in quantity if new centers of Russian studies are to spring up in the United States. Quaere, is it in the interest of United States librar- ies to consider vast purchases of old Rus- sian books both to encourage the forma- tion of new centers and to strengthen existing centers of Russian studies? T h e University of Kansas has acquired books at a faster rate through exchanges than it could have on western markets. Soviet librarians are not well informed of market conditions in the West. Con- sequently they are fearful of making trades which might be disadvantageous. I had the unsettling experience of learn- ing, in the midst of negotiations with the Library of the Academy of Sciences, that someone had sent that library a copy of a recent catalog of one of the highest- priced dealers in Russian books in the world. I have insisted in my dealings with Soviet libraries that in any large volume trades they must be competitive not with the most expensive book deal- ers in the West but with more moderate book dealers and with going rates in the West for collections of Russian books. Soviet librarians have demonstrated, however, a desire to test just how far they could go and still keep business. T h e Russians are interested in ob- taining primarily new works in phys- ics, chemistry, engineering, and related fields to be purchased on the open mar- ket by American institutions in exchange for old books, and in trading either the entire output of American universities or that part of the output which would accurately reflect a "profile" of each university. There is a general impression that "page-for-page" is a safer and more satis- factory way to trade books. There is little doubt that, when institutions are exchanging only their own publications, a page-for-page exchange is reasonable and fair. It does, however, involve a con- siderable amount of extra bookkeeping. T h e necessity for it arises either because an institution has had little experience in exchanging with another institution and so has no grounds to trust the insti- tution with which it is exchanging or because an institution has grounds to mistrust that institution. In fact when only the publications of the exchanging institutions are involved a book-for-book exchange is simpler and less costly in time. A page-for-page basis can make ex- changes economically unfeasible when the American institution receives old (i.e., pre-Revolutionary and pre-World War II) publications from the Soviet Union and is asked to buy on the open market in the United States or elsewhere for a Soviet institution. T h e average cost to the University of Kansas of books or serials purchased for Soviet institutions runs at almost exactly two cents per page. This high level is the result of the aforementioned requirements of Soviet institutions. Added to the two cents per page must be a factor to cover overhead. That figure is high because the Univer- sity of Kansas is compelled to enter into 470 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES correspondence with a variety of dealers and to process bills often with separate vouchers for each specific publication. T h e Soviet institutions when supplying old publications generally confine them- selves to supplying publications of which they have duplicates or which are avail- able in local second-hand stores. Some of these publications have many pages and yet are intrinsically not too valu- able. For example, a volume (three issues) of Russkaia Starina, a well-known nineteenth- and twentieth-century pub- lication, which has a normal market value in the West of five dollars (al- though, to be sure, I have purchased volumes for two dollars) and which sell, on the average, for ten dollars at the official exchange rate or four dollars at the tourist rate in Soviet second-hand shops, would cost the recipient twenty dollars (i.e., eighty dollars per year) if a page-for-page basis were employed. Such a result would obviously make it impossible for an American institution to accept any issues of Russkaia Starina on exchange. T h e simplest procedure for obtaining old books is to send want lists to one of the four Soviet libraries with large duplicate collections: (1) Library of the Academy of Sciences, Berzhovaia Linia 1, Leningrad; (2) Saltykov-Shched- rin State Public Library, Sadovaia ulitsa 18, Leningrad; (3) Lenin State Public Library, Mokhovaia ulitsa, Moscow; (4) Library of the University of Moscow, Mokhovaia ulitsa 9. T h e combined du- plicate resources of these institutions to- tal some seven million volumes, accord- ing to figures furnished me by officials of these institutions. Although these figures may well have been estimates, the officials in question insisted on their near accuracy. It should be noted that one reason for low estimates of the num- ber of duplicates available is the unwill- ingness of Soviet librarians to concede that their figures of total holdings are inflated by a factor of as much, in some cases, as 25 per cent by duplicate hold- ings. I was told in the Soviet Union that several United States libraries have al- ready been doing this for a few years, e.g. Harvard, Columbia, Indiana, and California. Unfortunately, from the point of view of Soviet libraries, these libraries are unable to exchange in large volume, primarily because they already possess the largest part of the duplicates avail- able for exchange in the Soviet Union. T h e Universities of Tubingen and Cologne in Germany have done substan- tial business with Soviet libraries. Dr. Peter Scheibert, since May 1959 profes- sor at Marburg, but formerly at Cologne working under Professor Giinther Stokl, has done an outstanding j o b of building up the holdings of Cologne University's Seminar fiir Geschichte Osteuropas which a few years ago did not exist. It is my impression that there is today a good opportunity for libraries like those of Cologne and Kansas quickly to build substantial Russian holdings through exchanges with Soviet libraries. B U Y I N G IN S E C O N D - H A N D S H O P S T h e book-buying habits of American librarians and scholars who travel in the Soviet Union have been materially changed by a Soviet regulation put into effect in the spring of 1958. According to it books published before 1917 which are purchased in second-hand shops for export are subject to an export tax, normally payable on mailing the books. T h e tax is calculated by officials either of the Lenin State Public Library in Moscow, or of the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library in Leningrad. T h e tax is based not on the prices actually paid for second-hand books but on the values assigned to those books by the officials involved. T h e tax seems to aver- age about 200 per cent of the prices ac- tually paid for books. Since this tax is not imposed on books sent by Soviet libraries on exchange, it seems clear NO V EMBER 1959 471 that the purpose of this tax is to stop the flow of books from Soviet second- hand shops to foreign libraries. There are probably several reasons for under- taking to stop that flow. It seems prob- able that an important reason is to com- pel foreign libraries to obtain old books for Soviet libraries, thus assuring the lat- ter of greater credits in their dealings with the outside world. Since the Soviet state public libraries have displayed a willingness to purchase old books on the open market for foreign libraries, those Soviet libraries stand to gain most from this change. Indeed under present conditions any American librarians and scholars who locate old books desired for their libraries in second-hand shops are doing their own libraries, as well as Soviet libraries, a great disservice by purchasing them outright. T h e proper procedure is to reserve them and then negotiate with a Soviet library for the purchase of these books by the Soviet library on behalf of the American li- brary in question, the latter undertaking to furnish books in exchange. T h a t means that travelling scholars and li- brarians must, in the future, be sup- plied by their libraries with evidence of their bona fides, either through a general letter conferring authority to act as agents or through letters to the same effect to the individual Soviet libraries. T h e above in no way affects the de- sirability of purchasing in the second- hand shops books published 1917 and after. M I C R O F I L M I N G P O S S I B I L I T I E S Soviet libraries supply microfilms of unpublished MSS and documents to foreign scholars, within the limits of their capacities. That there is an inter- est in the expansion of microfilming ca- pacities is evidenced by the opening of a plant to produce microfilming units in Odessa which delivered its first products probably in September 1957. T h e major academy of science libraries (Leningrad, Moscow, Tbilisi, and Kiev), the Univer- sity of Moscow Library, the major pub- lic libraries (Leningrad and Moscow), and the Central State Archive of Old Acts in Moscow have long been known to possess their own microfilming equip- ment and they generally are ready to microfilm materials in institutions in the same city which lack such equipment. T h e Odessa State Public Library and the library of the University of Odessa are probably now in a position to supply microfilms. T h e hope is that more and more libraries will obtain such equip- ment. It should be mentioned that ap- parently all Soviet microfilms produced by libraries or archives are on a nitrate rather than an acetate base; therefore, they are highly inflammable and should be kept cool and in a fire-proof container or room, separate from other microfilms. If they cannot be kept in a reasonably cool and secure place, they should be copied. I N T E R L I B R A R Y L O A N It appears that Soviet libraries are permitted to engage in international in- terlibrary loan. Soviet books have been sent to Finland and Germany. T h e Len- in Library has supplied on loan micro- films of dissertations for about twenty- four cents apiece. T h e Library of the Academy of Sciences has indicated its willingness to send other than unica in limited quantities on loan to the Library of the University of Kansas. D I S T I N G U I S H E D C O L L E C T I O N S Both from travelers and from printed Soviet sources, especially in the last few years, it is possible to form an extensive image of the collections available in the major centers, Moscow and Leningrad. Relatively few comments have been made on collections in other centers. A few descriptions based on personal ex- periences may help to rectify that lack. Persons desiring to use these collections 472 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES might well write in advance to the offi- cials named below. 1. Belorussian State Public Library of Minsk has a special collection of some 65,000 volumes on Belorussia which are kept separate and are listed in a separate catalog. T h e director of the library is Iosif Benseanovich Semanovsky, Krasno- armeiskaia ul. 3. Although the bulk of the library's holdings was taken by Ger- mans, its special collection, partially re- established with the help of other Soviet libraries, is unique. 2. Public Scientific Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic contains a man- uscript division with over 200,000 MSS. In it are to be found literary MSS of many authors such as Frank and Gogol. T h e Lazarevsky collection contains pri- kazi of hetmans, land grants, and mili- tary documents. Eastern documents in- cluding papyri are available, especially in Persian, Chinese, and Assyrian. T h e Cossack papers of Vodyn Mdzalevsky, largely published, represent another substantial holding. T h e vice-director in charge of international exchanges is Ni- kita Patapovich Rud', ul. Volodimera 5 8A, Kiev. 3. The Scientific Library of the Odes- sa State University by the name of Mech- nikov contains three noteworthy special collections: (1) T h e Vorontsov collection assembled by M. S. Vorontsov during the French Revolution comprises among other things a French Revolutionary collection of several thousand pam- phlets, some of which have been report- edly borrowed by French scholars be- cause they were not available in France. T h e Vorontsov collection, along with (2) the Strogonov collection, also offers the scholar a large collection of books pub- lished in France during the period of the French Revolution and Napoleon. (3) T h e Shil'der collections afford addi- tional works, primarily secondary, deal- ing with the same period. Roughly 65 per cent of all books in the Odessa Uni- versity Library are in foreign languages. T h e director is Nikolai Vladimirovich Pavliuk, ul. Sovetskoi Armii 24. 4. State Scientific Library by the name of Gor'ky, Odessa contains a manuscripts division in which there are about 8,000 MSS. Among its prized possessions are Opisanie Kniaziia Kurbskago o tsare Ioanne Vladimiroviche in quarto, by its binding and watermark an eighteenth- century copy, and Istoriia Kazanskaia, a late sixteenth-century or seventeenth- century MS of 322 quarto pages. T h e director of the library is Vasilii Andree- vich Zagoruiko, ul. Pastera 13, and the chief of the manuscripts division is Mari- ia Vladimirovna Rapoport. 5. The State Museum of Georgia of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, Tbilisi contains a manuscript col- lection in which are to be found nu- merous medieval Georgian theological and liturgical texts in various scripts, and frequent illuminated MSS. T h e di- rector is Ivan Onisimovich Rukhadze, Ketskhoveli 10. E X C H A N G E S O F L I B R A R I A N S Soviet librarians are interested in be- coming better acquainted with the American library scene. After discussions with Soviet librarians, it is clear that a proposal to exchange librarians on tours of inspection would have a warm recep- tion and probably be accepted. Soviet librarians seem to be universally in- trigued by the Library of Congress. There seems to be interest in observing the operations of large university librar- ies, of more moderate-sized university libraries, and of larger public libraries so selected as to give Soviet librarians at the same time an opportunity of observ- ing life in various parts of the United States. A proposal, therefore, by Amer- ican librarians to visit not only the ma- jor centers in Moscow and Leningrad, but also other library centers such as Minsk, Kiev, Odessa, Tbilisi, Tashkent, (Continued on page 499) NO V EMBER 1959 473 ber of libraries not members of A R L . A number of our members also represent their institutions as members of A R L . Perhaps we could leave to them the ma- jor fields of interlibrary programs, and concentrate on internal programs. Or we might become the agency through which their programs are officially brought to our attention. T h e second difficulty is that of our own tradition—or habits. This section, though large, has not in the past been a very active or a very strong one. I d o not know whether we can change or not. W e are pretty individualistic. And with so many areas of interest assigned to other divisions, we may seem to have little left for ourselves. Your officers and steering committee have hopes that we can be- come an effective voice in our profession. W e hope that you will help by serving willingly on programs or committees. Let us have your suggestions and your help. Recent Experiences with Soviet Libraries (Continued from page 473) and Irkutsk as well as a few local li- braries should be in order. A T T I T U D E S O F S O V I E T L I B R A R I A N S AND A R C H I V I S T S There has been a great deal of com- ment by American scholars visiting the Soviet Union upon the cordial reception and helpfulness forthcoming from So- viet librarians and archivists. T h e writer was cordially received by officials of twenty-seven of thirty libraries, ar- chives, and institutes he attempted to visit. T h e first visit, to the Library of the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad, re- sulted in a lengthy, but informative dis- course on the operation of Soviet librar- ies, replete with references to Marxism- Leninism, by M. A. Viklaiev, the scientif- ic secretary of the library. This discourse was so detailed that the writer felt that he was imposing upon the good offices of the secretary. Ultimately it proved, how- ever, of enormous practical help in per- mitting more effective and quicker nego- tiations with other libraries. In institu- tion after institution no effort was spared to permit me to view what I wished to see. In striking contrast was the attitude of the Central State Archive of Old Acts in Moscow, which refused to permit a visit. I went, nevertheless, merely (al- though the archive has been used re- cently by Finnish scholars) to order mi- crofilms of some fifteenth- and sixteenth- century documents on Muscovite rela- tions with Lithuania which I knew to be in the archive. My order was at first accepted, but then rejected when it be- came clear that I was an American and not a Pole. T h e reason given was that per an agreement with the American Embassy no American was to be allowed to use the facilities of the archive with- out a letter from the Embassy. Embassy officials denied the existence of an agree- ment and refused to give me a letter. In the overwhelming majority of cases, I was not made to feel that Americans were subject to discrimination. On the contrary, I felt that I received unexpect- ably gracious and pleasant treatment. Soviet librarians are eager for ex- changes. Soviet Academy and university scholars are often displeased by the ab- sence of western scientific literature from the shelves of Soviet libraries. Soviet in- stitutions have an inadequate supply of "gold" rubles (i.e., convertible currency) with which to purchase western publi- cations. Exchanges present a welcome solution. NO V EMBER 1959 499