The Polish collection in the Slavic Department of The Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences: history and research

Abstract

The Slavic Department of The Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences was created in 1883 as a Slavic non-Russian collection. At present, the Slavic department numbered about 80 000 items. The Polish collection consisted of more than 40 000 items, among them about 2700 books and magazines published in 17th-18th centuries. The main sources for the acquisition of Polish collection were the purchase of books, the gifts from organizations and scientists, and the war booty. In the 19th century, The Slavic Department received legal deposit copies of all Polish editions published in the Russian Empire. Research work on the Polish collection started in the late 1990s, since that time there were published several catalogues, studied the collection of old Polish books, and all the books published before 19th century were restored and transferred to conservation. The Slavic Department is in the process of developing an electronic catalogue of its collections.