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Annual Report of the Slavic Division for 1942

(Annual Report of the Chief, Mr. N. R. Rodionoff, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1942)

The introductory statement about the Slavic Division appearing on p. 214–215 of the "Annual Report of The Librarian of Congress," 1940, can also serve its purpose in an annual report for 1941–1942.

Moreover, it can be well supplemented by "History and Objectives of the Slavic Division," as set forth on pages 1–10 of my typewritten "Manual of the Slavic Division," which is now being edited by Dr. Orne.

It is obvious that from now on readers of our annual reports should consult our manuals first.

Several statements appearing in this report also appear in my manual. They are designated by footnotes.


SERVICES

As compared with the corresponding data for the fiscal year 1940–1941, the demand for the materials of the Slavic Division, both used on the premises and borrowed through loans, had increased 2.8 times during the fiscal year 1941–1942 and the number of the readers and callers — 1.4 times.

The demand for the Division's reference service had increased even more. For, during the fiscal year 1941–1942 the members of the Division's staff answered 2,544 telephone inquiries (as against about 500 answered in the preceding year) and held 848 conferences with investigators (as against about 300 held during the preceding year), rendering them bibliographical service, usually after preliminary search for references suitable for their researches.

The overwhelming majority of these investigators were employees of the United States doing their official assignments, mostly in connection with the war-time conditions.1

In peace-times the Slavic Division tends not to distinguish its customers by their status, or by the purposes of their interest in its materials. The Division does not serve the United States Government as such because there is no demand for it, while assisting individual employees of the United States, presumably in their official researches, and lending its materials to other governmental libraries, presumably for official use.

In war-times, however, the demands for the Division's reference service from governmental war units, as well as from the regular governmental units engaged in various researches which have been prompted by the war, had increased to the extent of absorbing about seventy percent of the Division's man-hours. It appears that the Slavic Division now really renders the most of its services to the United States Government.

The World War II started to increase the demand for the reference service of the Slavic Division very soon after the signing of the Soviet-German Pact.

At that time various private groups and projects (Laswell Group, Project of Bibliography of American Possessions, Project of Bibliography of Air Defense, etc.), as well as individual students and the general reader, pressed the Slavic Division with their demands for bibliographical, oral and written, assistance.

As usual, the seekers for such an assistance did not limit their inquiries to references in the Slavic languages only, or to the holdings of the Slavic Division and the Library of Congress at large. On the contrary, the majority of them expected and in many cases received the suggestions from the Slavic Division falling far beyond the scope of its collections.

Later, since the beginning of the Russian-German War, some of the United States Departments, as the Department of War, Navy, Justice, Commerce, the Weather Bureau, the Bureau of Standards, the Bureau of Mines, etc.) had become quite active in seeking for Russian sources pertaining to their special topics of investigation on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Besides the specified sources, their investigators were often given, on loans to their respective libraries, much more materials which had been recommended and offered by the members of the staff of the Slavic Division.

Since September, 1941, the Slavic Division has become well aware of the existence of the Coordinator of Information who sent its Chief, through the Librarian, a long Russian mimeographed paper for translation into English. The translation had consumed a considerable amount of the Division's official time, the editing and retyping had consumed a considerable amount of my own time.

Since the organization of the Division of Special Information, hardly a day has passed without personal calls of some members of its staff on the Slavic Division, seeking for Russian references bearing on their researches. From October, 1941, to July, 1942, the Division of Special Information borrowed or reserved about four hundred pieces of Slavic materials belonging to the Slavic Division and was referred by the members of the staff of the Slavic Division to at least one thousand sources available elsewhere. The services of the Slavic Division rendered to the Division of Special Information were acknowledged by Mr. Russel S. Dozer, the Administrative Assistant of the said Division, in his Memorandum to the Acting Librarian, dated May 6, 1942.

At the same time, but on a smaller scale, the War and Navy Departments continued to be customers of the Slavic Division.

The entrance of the United States into the War has not added much to an already considerable amount of official inquiries for which the Slavic Division had rendered its reference service. But it has increased oral inquiries from the general public seeking for some brief information about the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, its organization, its leaders, its cities and towns which have been mentioned in American newspapers and have become historical landmarks of the stubborn and heroic fight of the Russian people against the common enemy of Russia and the United States.

Thus the Slavic Division has long been engaged in the work which is very essential to the efforts of some of the United States defense units, as well as to the morale of the general public.

The increase of the reference service of the Slavic Division called for an enormous amount of overtime work done by me personally during the calendar years 1940 and 1941. This work (uncompensated in any way) amounted to 68 days in 1940 and to 66 days in 1941, including the work for the Emergency Preservation Project which, of course, should also be included in a survey of the Slavic Division's war-time activities.

The routine work of the Slavic Division in simplified processing its materials went on and is going on mostly in connection with its actual reference service. Therefore, the war-time conditions have affected it in two ways, namely: (1) the increased demand for the Division's reference service leaves less time for any other work, and (2) the Division has to attend to the processing mostly of the materials which is falling in the scope of the researches of various war agencies.

The regular service of the Slavic Division to other units of the Library of Congress is limited for the lack of the Division's staff; moreover, there is not much demand for it because several divisions of the Library have their own staff members familiar with the Slavic languages. However, a virtually unlimited irregular service was rendered by the Slavic Division to other units of the Library in connection with the carrying out of some special projects. Among them the Union List of Serials has taken a great amount of the Division's time during the last two years and will take some more.2

The number of books and other materials issued by the Division for inside (i.e. the premises of the Division and the Library at large) and outside (i.e. out of the building, on personal and inter-library loans) use are shown in Appendix I (as per General Order No. 1139).

The statistics of the materials used for photo-reproduction by outside orders have not been computed. I suggest again, as I did in my Annual Report for the fiscal year 1940–1941, that copies of the Library's receipts for photo-reproduction be regularly sent to the division which supplies the materials for the given order. Copies of these receipts must indicate the origin of the materials used in each particular case and the number of the reproduced pages. Then we shall be able to compute the exact statistics of the number of pages supplied by the Division for photo-reproduction during any given period.

By the orders of the Slavic Division about 100 pages of the Checking Edition of the Union List of Serials were photostated during the year. The entries of the Division were inserted in pencil on those pages.

The Slavic Division has no study rooms. Occupants of individual desks and study rooms elsewhere in the Library borrow the Division's books which are entered in the statistics of the materials issued for use on the premises of the Division and the Library at large.

The Union Lists, the Union and other catalogs were used extensively by the staff. Readers seldom consult them, not having sufficient time to get acquainted with their use.

About 560 reference inquiries were answered by the Division during the year by correspondence, the great majority of them being the letters referred from other divisions — in these cases the Slavic Division furnishes but either the materials, or the information for replies. Not having a typist on its staff, nor the time and the place to maintain a filing system, the Division is compelled to reduce its correspondence to an unavoidable minimum. Moreover, the same policy is dictated by the increased demand for oral reference service, as set forth above.

For the same reasons there was no time to compile any bibliographies. In fact, there has never been time for the Division to compile bibliographies, or to undertake some useful and serious research because it has long, or rather always, been badly under-staffed for the multiplicity of its functions and for the proper handling of the materials accumulated on its shelves. The yearly increases of the Division's holdings, as well as the increase of the demand for its reference service — without corresponding increases of its personnel — only aggravate the problem of maintaining a library in the Division and not merely a stock room. Moreover, the war-time conditions and their effect on the work of the Division, as set forth above, urgently call for a drastic curtailment of its paper work.

The important administrative reports and memoranda prepared by me during the fiscal year 1941–1942 were not so numerous as those prepared by me during the preceding fiscal year. In the first place, there was no time for writing them, and in the second, my writing of them has proved futile as to effects, wasteful as to time and detrimental to my professional standing. In cases calling for our independent judgement, we, employees of the United States on the staff of the Library of Congress, have apparently no guarantees against consequences injurious to our professional standings.

However, the following papers prepared by me during the year may be mentioned as for the time they had consumed (in fact, it was my overtime, i.e. the time beyond the regular official length of our working week) and for the importance of the matters they referred to:

  1) Annual Report for the fiscal year 1940–1941, on 35 typewritten pages, made out in conformity with a new official outline. My work — all overtime — on this report had proved extremely wasteful, as in the printed Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the fiscal year 1940–1941 the work of the Slavic Division is mentioned in but five brief paragraphs and, therefore, is grossly understated.

  2) The Manual of the Slavic Division, on 40 typewritten pages, made out in conformity with an official outline. Now the Manual is being edited by Dr. Orne.

  3) My Memorandum to the Librarian, dated January 1st, 1942, Re my Annual Report for 1940–1941 (as to how it had been "abridged" in the Annual Report of the Librarian for 1940–1941).

  4) My Memorandum to the Acting Librarian, dated May 24, 1942, Re General Order No. 1112, for commenting on the form of annual reports of the Librarian.

  5) My Memorandum to the Reference Librarian, dated July 14, 1941, Re Allotments for the Purchase of New Materials.

A punishment for my independent comments and opinions expressed in these and other official papers was inflicted on me by a low efficiency rate, in spite of an enormous amount of my overtime work done during the year. Some more punishments and in some other form ought to be expected, I presume.

There were no changes or revisions of policies, no new procedures, routines, etc., in the Slavic Division during the year because the Division is badly under-staffed and physically unable to effect any substantial changes either in its services, or in the maintenance of its collections. I strongly feel that about 40 days of my own time devoted to official business during the fiscal year 1941–1942 is a sufficient evidence thereof.


SPECIAL PROJECTS

The two projects were carried out in the Division during the year, both adding a considerable amount of extra work to the regular routine duties of the members of its staff; the projects were: (1) The completion of the work for the second edition of the Union List of Serials referred to in Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress, 1940, p. 215, and in my unabridged original Annual Report for the fiscal year 1940–1941 on p. 10 and 14; (2) The Emergency Preservation Project.

From July to November, 1941, inclusive, about 1,700 new additional Slavic entries were made out by the Slavic Division for the second, revised and augmented, edition of the UNION LIST OF SERIALS IN LIBRARIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA, now in preparation, and about 300 old ones were revised and corrected by checking de visu several thousand issues of serials and periodicals.

It should be noted that our entries for the Union List contain the basic bibliographical data and the exact records of our holdings under each entry.

Although this Union List does not include official governmental serials and periodicals (with a few, rather illogical, exceptions), nevertheless, the Slavic Division has entered in total over 5,500 titles in it, representing about 73,500 issues of Slavic (mostly Russian) periodicals and serials. Since the Division's original manuscript card entries for its periodicals and serials are rather clumsy, we look forward for the publication of the second edition of the Union List with great expectations, deeply grieving about the refusal of its editors to grant us an opportunity to read and correct its proofs containing our entries.

The work on this project should of course be regarded not only as a special service rendered by us to the public, but also as an important enlargement of our Apparatus, the project being a big bibliographical enterprise and a development of one of our special catalogs at the same time. The major work on this project, from its beginning in 1939 to its completion in 1941, was done for the Slavic Division by Mr. W. L. Joukowsky, a member of its staff.

The Emergency Preservation Project, referred to on p. 10–11 of my unabridged original Annual Report for the fiscal year 1940–1941, took considerable time in January, 1942, for packing into seventy-eight boxes about 2,900 volumes of the materials selected in April, 1941.

Cooperation is not the proper subheading for our services to other units of the Library, other governmental agencies, other libraries and scholarly groups, since we have been very little, if at all, reciprocated by them with their services and assistance. Therefore, our "cooperation" is just a misapplied definition of some of our outright services.

The Slavic Division extended every possible assistance to the Main Reading Room and the Photoduplication Service in locating the Slavic materials in the Library, requested either for interlibrary loans, or for photo-reproduction. On the materials which are not in the Library of Congress the Division furnished the data, whenever available, from the Union Lists and the Union Catalog, as to in what other American libraries the materials requested could be found. The assistance and the service rendered by the Slavic Division to the Division of Special Information and other governmental units, outside the Library of Congress, is referred to above on pages 3–7.

The demand for our checking of various lists of books (bibliographies, price lists, etc.) somewhat lessened during the fiscal year 1941–1942, as compared with the similar demand pressed on the Slavic Division during the preceding year.

Nevertheless, about 3,000 titles were checked by me against the Division's holdings, both cataloged and uncataloged. Many titles were also checked against the holdings of the Library at large. If we apply to this work (which is usually done by me personally because I possess better memory and longer bibliographical experience than my assistants) an average time-consuming coefficient of 0.1 man-hour, the man-hours consumed by this service in the Slavic Division during the fiscal year of 1941–1942 would amount to 300, or to 37.5 man-days. In many cases, however, the checking of bibliographical lists proves (especially the lists with many entries for magazine articles) a very exacting and complicated research which takes more than 0.1 man-hour per title.

Since all these services, put under a wrong sub-heading "Cooperation," annually take great amounts of my own time and the habitual and excessive overtime work proves damaging to my health, I have no plans for further "cooperation." Receiving no cooperation from anybody, but being unpardonably optimistic, I still hope to get some cooperation from the Administration of the Library of Congress in my efforts to improve the physical and moral working conditions in the Slavic Division.


APPARATUS

The work for the second edition of the Union List of Serials, mentioned above, may be regarded as a big new bibliographical enterprise and, at the same time, as a development of the Division's most complicated special catalog, namely, the Catalog of temporary entries for its periodicals and serials, which by the middle of the fiscal year 1941–1942 contained over 5,500 entries, with the basic bibliographical data on them and the records for about 73,500 issues of periodicals and serials.

Besides developing this special catalog, the Division continued to develop its special Catalog of temporary author, or title, entries, mostly for monographic (non-serial) publications, comprising by the end of the fiscal year about 43,800 entries for about 54,500 pieces (books and pamphlets)3 and its special Union Catalog of some of the Slavic publications in some of the American libraries, comprising by the end of the fiscal year about 64,200 author, or title, entries — printed, typewritten, photostated and mimeographed — including numerous extra copies which are to be used for added entries. The entries for this catalog have been delivered from the Division of the Union Catalog.

Besides the three special card catalogs described above, the Slavic Division maintains the General Catalog of printed author, title and some subject entries, representing but a small portion of Slavic holdings of the entire Library of Congress, including about 9,000 titles, or about 11,000 volumes belonging to the Slavic Division. The entries (about 14,000) for this catalog are produced and supplied by the Processing Department of the Library.

The figures of the increases made during the fiscal year in the catalogs maintained by the Slavic Division, as well as the figures for other processing operations performed in the Division during the year are shown in Appendix II.

Although the Slavic Division is a reference library unit, it would lack one of some important prerequisites for a satisfactory reference service - the proper care and arrangement of its collections and catalogs — if it were not for the constant and persistent technical processing, however simplified and elementary, of its holdings by its staff. For, the Processing Department of the Library still does not have a sufficient staff to process the Slavic materials kept in the Slavic Division.

The staff of the Slavic Division is very inadequate for keeping its collections and catalogs in a library-like, and for doing away with their store-like, condition. The lack of the force which would be sufficient to enable the Division to make the proper care of its catalogs and the proper shelving of its collections as daily routine operations, with a considerable steady rate, is the most startling deficiency in its organization and the heaviest draw-back to its reference service.


MATERIAL PROCESSED

As indicated above, the Slavic Division has the three catalogs which represent approximately the following stocks of its partially processed holdings:

  1) Special catalog of temporary entries for periodicals and serials, comprising about 5,500 entries for about 73,500 issues, or numbers, or parts, but not volumes. Only about 1,000 entries have been temporarily classified by the staff of the Slavic Division.

  2) Special catalog of temporary entries for non-periodicals and non-serial publications, comprising about 43,800 entries for about 54,500 pieces (books and pamphlets). Almost all the entries have been temporarily classified and about 47,000 pieces have been temporarily bookplated, labeled and marked with call numbers — all by the staff of the Slavic Division.

  3) General catalog of printed entries, comprising about 14,000 entries for about 9,000 titles, or about 11,000 pieces — all have been permanently classified, bookplated, labeled and marked with call numbers by the staff of the Subject Cataloging Division, or rather the Classification Division, because almost all this work was done before the organization of the Processing Department in its present set-up. It is obvious, however, that this catalog has not been sufficiently developed with the title and subject entries. Besides, many of its entries need to be thoroughly revised and reprinted.

In, total, therefore, the Slavic Division had, by the end of the fiscal year, about 63,300 entries for about 58,300 titles, or about 139,00 pieces of its printed materials, as if the said pieces were computed immediately upon their delivery to the Slavic Division and before the congesting of periodicals, serials, and sets into bound volumes.


MATERIALS IN NEED OF PROCESSING

Computed by the same method, the materials which would be on hand in the Slavic Division on June 30, 1942, would have amounted to about 177,095 pieces. Of this amount, about 71,941 pieces (parts, issues and numbers of sets, periodicals and serials), delivered unbound, were subsequently bound in the Library into about 16,105 volumes, which reduced the number of individual items in the Division by 55,836 pieces. 4

Assuming that our method of computation is correct and the computation itself is approximately correct, the stock of uncataloged and unrecorded materials should, therefore be estimated at about 177,095 minus 139,000, or 38,095 (thirty-eight thousand and ninety-five) pieces, or about 21.5 percent.

For a superficial characterization of this stock, it should be noted that the stock consists of approximately 8,500 extra copies, covered by about 6,000 titles, of the publications which have already been recorded in the Division's special catalogs of temporary entries; of about 13,500 pamphlets, with the same number of the titles; and of about 16,095 books, with approximately 15,000 titles.

To secure a fair and unbiased appraisal of these data, it should be taken into consideration that the Slavic Division (1) is primarily a reference, but hardly a processing, unit, as it appears from the Classification Sheets of the members of its staff; (2) has not had catalogers on its staff since 1930; (3) has always been badly understaffed; and (4) has always been necessitated to perform a great variety of functions which are summarily recorded in the Annual Reports of the Librarian of Congress.

It should also be noted that, since the ultimate goal of the Processing Department is to have all the holdings of the Library represented by catalogs of printed card — author, title, issuing body and subject — entries, almost all the collections of the Slavic Division are to be regarded as consisting of the materials in need of the proper processing because (1) for the greater part of its processed materials the Division has but short temporary manuscript card entries, and (2) even the Division's General catalog of printed card entries should be thoroughly revised and many of its entries — reedited and reprinted.

The most urgent processing operations, in which the Division badly lags because of the lack of the staff, are, of course, the proper shelving of its collections and the proper filing of its catalog cards. Approximately 25,000 pieces of printed materials constitute the Division's steady arrears in the proper shelving of its materials and about 6,000 cards — in the proper filing. Our experience shows that we can run quite a large library without catalogs, provided that the proper shelving be constantly attended to.


MAINTENANCE AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE COLLECTIONS

The stock of materials which was sent by the Division to the Bindery during the year amounted to 3,830 pieces to be bound in 1,789 volumes. Besides, 77 volumes were sent for rebinding and repairing. Except 17 volumes bound in quarter bindings, the stock (of which the Division has so far received back about 900 volumes) was and is to be bound in full bindings.


THE EMERGENCY PRESERVATION PROJECT

is referred to above, on p. 14.


SPATIAL CHANGES

There were no spatial changes in the Division during the year.


ACQUISITIONS

The acquisition policy, if any, in regard to the materials to be purchased, was pursued for the Slavic Division during the fiscal years 1940–1942 by the two Fellows of the Library who are regarded by the Librarian as possessing higher qualifications for this function than all the members of the regular Library staff attending to Slavic materials in its several divisions.5

Since September, 1941, the policy has been pursued mostly by one of them, who was elevated to the position of a Consultant of the Library. Fellows of the Library of Congress and the majority of its consultants are not employees of the United States, some of them even are not American citizens. They operate under the personal patronage of the Librarian of Congress and his Chief Assistant.

Although the development of the Slavic Division is listed among the duties of its Chief in his Classification Sheet, this duty had been nullified by the Administration of the Library in behalf of the two above mentioned, privately employed, persons.

Besides, under the new administrative set-up, there are many authorities in the Processing Department who decide what Slavic materials, purchased presumably for the Slavic Division, should not be forwarded to the said Division. Therefore, the acquisition policy, if any, for the Slavic Division is being very easily nullified by a very chaotic Library practice of distribution of its newly acquired materials. The Processing Department apparently has no standing rules for the said distribution, or, at least, if there are any rules, they have never been made known to the Slavic Division, and, therefore, the Division is not aware as to what Slavic materials may be recommended for purchase, in anticipation of their prompt delivery to its premises upon the purchases.6

The practice of distribution of Slavic materials purchased for the Slavic Division was quite definite and effective under Dr. Putnam's administration because almost all the books purchased then upon the recommendations of the Chiefs of the Slavic Division were promptly delivered to the said Division.

Now, the acquisition "policy," if any, stumbles badly upon the distribution "policy," if any, and both "policies" are carried out rather mysteriously and with a terrific red tape. For, about seventeen hundred dollars ($1,700.00) were spent by the Library during the fiscal year 1941–1942 on the purchases of Slavic materials, presumably for the Slavic Division, but the total cost of about 450 pieces delivered to the Slavic Division from these purchases hardly exceeds four hundred dollars ($400.00). All the deliveries were made without accompanying lists. I am not in a position to argue about these mysteries.

The Slavic materials reaching the Library of Congress through the International Book Exchange up to 1942 were received for the Library by its Division of Documents. The distribution policy, if any, of the said division effected the deliveries of some materials to the Slavic Division, but a deep mystery surrounds the selection, as well as the deliveries, of them. The selection was performed by the distributor of the Division of Documents. The deliveries were made without accompanying lists. The Chief of the Slavic Division has never had a chance to see and examine any lists, or correspondence, which the Division of Documents received from the senders of the materials. The Book Chamber of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics used to send its list with its materials to the Chief of the Division of Documents, but for some unknown reasons these lists were returned to the sender, although they were supposed to be properly filed and indexed in the Division of Documents as the records of the acquisitions of the United States property.

Although at the beginning of 1942 the Division of Accessions took charge of the Inter- Library and International Book Exchanges, the practice of distribution of the materials incoming from these sources has not been improved.

The strength of the collections housed in the Slavic Division probably lies in a considerable development of several fields. The major holdings in the Division are briefly described by the Library of Congress classes on pages 23–25 of my unabridged original Annual Report for the fiscal year 1940–1941 and on pages 17–21 of my "Manual of the Slavic Division," which is now being edited by Dr. Orne.

The smallness of the collections of the Slavic Division is probably their main weakness. Moreover, one might surmise from the name of the Division that it contains all the Slavic holdings of the Library, while it houses but a part of them, consisting mostly of Russian printed materials, and even of not all the Russian printed items belonging to the Library of Congress, but of not more than seventy percent of them. Although the Division houses one of the large collections of Russian books which can be found outside of Russia and offers to an investigator an impressive stock of materials for serious research, no investigator should miss an opportunity to examine the Slavic resources of the Library housed in its other divisions; nor should serious investigators overlook the existence of several other American large collections of Slavic materials which can be found at the New York Public Library and the Libraries of the Universities California, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.

Sources of acquisition

(a) Appropriated funds

None

(b) Endowment Funds

Bequest of Alexis V. Babine: Yearly interest of $267.39 on Permanent Loan Fund of $6,684.74. There is about $800.00 of unencumbered accumulated interest on June 30, 1942.

(c) Funds for immediate disbursement

Fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500.00) were allotted for the fiscal year 1941–1942.

(d) Gifts

The gifts were occasional, few and insignificant. All of them were acknowledged by the Division of Accessions.

(e) Transfers and exchanges

Transfers and exchanges, especially the International Book Exchange, have always been, and so were in 1941–1942, the main source of acquisition of Russian publications by the Slavic Division. Unfortunately, large stocks of insignificant materials and duplicates have usually been, and so were in 1941–1942, dumped on the premises of the Slavic Division from this source. The lack of the staff and shelf space make such stocks a real burden for the Slavic Division.

Important acquisitions in 1941–1942

(a) Collections

None

(b) Individual pieces

None

Plans for development of collections

The planning of development and of redistribution of the Slavic Division's holdings has been left by the Chief Assistant Librarian to the discretion of the Processing Department and the Library's Consultant in Slavic History. The Chief of the Division has not been informed of the plan, if any, but has to regard the premises of the Slavic Division merely as dumping grounds for the Processing Department.


PERSONNEL

Changes and promotions. New Positions.

No changes in the personnel of the Slavic Division were effected during the fiscal year 1941–1942.

Retirement and Deaths

None.

Positions affected by military leave and temporary appointments or promotions

None


PUBLIC RELATIONS

None


Appendix I.
Statistical Summaries of the Services rendered by the Slavic Division during the Fiscal year 1941–1942.

1. Readers served:2,945
2. Volumes and other materials issued to readers on the premises of the Division and the Library at large:31,053
3. Volumes and other materials issued for use outside the Library:1,684
4. Reference inquiries handled by telephone:2,544
5. Conferences with investigators:848

CORRESPONDENCE:

Reference inquiries cleared:48
Routine letters (for which but the materials for replies were furnished): 511
Administrative memoranda (including attendance reports):244

TRANSLATIONS

Took about 120 man-hours.

RESEARCH and SEARCH

(a) in and for the materials which are suitable to the purposes of various investigators: about 390 man-hours.

(b) for the publications either offered for purchase, or requested for reference: about 300 man-hours.

COOPERATION

(i.e. Outright unreciprocated services to other Library units): about 107 man-hours.

Appendix II.
Statistical Summaries of the Processing Operations
performed in the Slavic Division during the fiscal year 1941–1942.

1. Simplified cataloging: titles2,315
2. Temporary classifying: titles2,095
3. Bookplating 
4. Labeling 
5. Perforating 
6. Marking with call nos.: volumes 2,612
7. Shelving: vls. and other materialsabout 30,000 pieces, including unbound issues of newspapers
8. Prepared for binding and sent to the Bindery3,830 pieces to be bound into 1,789 vls
9. Cards filed into 
   (a) catalog of printed cards3,234
   (b) catalog of temporary entries for monographic materials2,315
   (c) catalog of temporary entries for serialsover 2,000
10. Union List of Serials: 
   (a) the entries made out for the Divisionover 2,000
   (b) the same entries made out for the Editors, either by listing, or by inserting in Checking editionover 2,000
   (c) the checking photostats of themover 2,000
   (d) the checking de visu of about 7,000 issues of periodicals and serials
11. The Emergency Preservation Project: 
   the checking and packingabout 2,900 volumes 

Appendix III.
The Gains and the Losses of Individual Items in the Slavic Division during the fiscal year 1941–1942.

Balance on June 30, 1941119,488 items

(1,300 items removed in the Spring, 1941, by the orders of Messrs. Whitfield and Yakobson were counted as a loss during the fiscal year 1940–1941)
Accessions in 1941–1942:
(a) through Exchange 2,112 items
(b) through Purchase 450 items
Total gains122,050 items
Losses in 1941–1942:
   (a) removed for Emergency2,900 items
   (b) congested in binding2,041 items
   (c) transferred to other divisions119 items
Total losses:5,050 items
BALANCE on JUNE 30, 1942:117,000 items

1 Cf. Appendix I: "Statistical Summaries of the Services rendered by the Slavic Division during the fiscal year 1941–1942."  Back to text

2The statements appearing here on pages 3–7 are the same which appear on pages 23–27 of my "Manual of the Slavic Division."  Back to text

3Cf. Appendix II: "Statistical Summaries of Simplified Processing Operations in the Slavic Division during the fiscal year 1941–1941." Back to text

4Cf. Appendix III for the other losses of individual items in the Slavic Division during the fiscal year 1941–1942. Back to text

5Cf. my Memorandum, dated January 1, 1942, to the Librarian, Re the latter's Annual Report for the fiscal year 1940–1941. Back to text

6Cf. My Memorandum to the Reference Librarian, dated July 14, 1941, Re Allotments for the Purchase of New Materials. Back to text

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