Library Support for Slavic Studies
December 5, 1998

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The Library has, historically, provided extensive support for the language and literature programs of the University, and our collections in languages and literatures form a very large part of the Library’s holdings. Measuring, alone, the portion of the collections which are classed in the Library of Congress Classification, the P classes (languages and literatures) hold more than 300,000 titles. This classification includes some disciplines (such as Classics, Egyptology, linguistics) which are not covered in this report, but most of this number is relevant. It should be noted that the title counts include books and serials on or about the particular languages, whether in that language or in English (or other languages). They do not reveal how many books we may have in the specific language (as these books may be on totally unrelated subjects, and not of interest to the program in question)

Slavic Studies has long been a strength at Brown, and our expenditure of $23,674 for 1997/98 does not reflect the total commitment to this area. We have long maintained exchange programs with major Russian libraries, to whom we send American journals in return for Slavic (not only Russian) journals and books. The material we receive through these exchange programs is not only in language and literature, however, but fits more into the area studies model. We are reviewing these exchanges to determine if they are still the best way to get Slavic material since the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

Our Slavic holdings are mainly on Russian language and literature (16,950 of the more than 22,000 titles), but they include considerable collections on the other Slavic languages as well. Our Czech collection, at 782 titles, is considered to be very strong, and other considerable holdings are on Church Slavonic (251 titles), Bulgarian (895 titles), and Polish (1,406 titles). We have two Collection Development Librarians for Slavic Studies: Jean Rainwater (Box A, x3723, Jean_Rainwater@brown.edu), who selects material for purchase, and Linda Ewbank (Box A, x9963, Linda_Ewbank@brown.edu), who selects from the exchange offerings.

The table below shows the expenditures for the past three years:

These figures do not include funds expended on exchange agreements ($25,451 in 1997/98). Our largest exchange partners are the Russian National Library, the Russian State Library, and the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The current economic situation in Russia has led to instability in funding for libraries, and the Russian National Library is unable to afford postage to ship books which we have ordered. Following the example of other libraries in the United States, we have recently sent money for postage, and will probably send more in the future. Many of the books obtained through exchanges are not available from other sources either because they are older materials or are recent but out of print. These expenditures can be contrasted with those reported just five years ago:

Here is a more specific breakdown of our holdings in the class PG, Slavic languages and literatures: