The Russian State Library (RSL) is the national library of Russia by virtue of the completeness and comprehensiveness of its collections of both domestic and foreign documents, which have made it a major repository of the cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation.

The primary mission of the RSL is to assemble, preserve, and make available to the public a universal collection of documents reflecting the entire breadth of human knowledge and especially materials pertaining to Russia and its national interests.

The RSL, which formerly was known as the V. I. Lenin State Library of the U.S.S.R., adopted its present name in 1992. The library traces its origins to the year 1862, when the Rumiantsev Museum was moved from St. Petersburg to the Pashkov House in Moscow. Built in the eighteenth century by the talented Russian architect V. I. Bazhenov, the Pashkov House became the first public library in Moscow. The foundation of the library was the unique collection of State Chancellor Count N. P. Rumiantsev, who died in 1826 in St. Petersburg and bequeathed his collection "for the benefit of the Fatherland and the ideal of enlightenment."

Collections

Today the Library holds more than 42 million documents in 247 languages (including the languages of 115 Asian and African countries), employs about 2,500 persons, serves some 1.5 million Russian and foreign readers annually, and conducts book exchanges with 98 countries. Its vast holdings make the RSL the largest library in Europe and the second largest in the world after the Library of Congress, a fact that has been reported many times in the Guinness Book of Records. On a typical workday at the RSL:

• 220 new readers are registered;
• the reading rooms can seat 5,200 persons;
• 38,000 documents are served in the reading rooms and through interlibrary loan;
• 1,400 new items are received.

The General Collections Division is one of the largest in the RSL. On its 275 kilometers of shelves, the Division houses more than 28 million documents (books, pamphlets, journals, serials, loose-leaf and bound publications) in 192 languages. The library has a nearly complete collection of domestic publications issued since 1862 and the most important foreign works published since 1701.

Very rich holdings of old Russian and foreign books, numerous private collections assembled by prominent bibliophiles and collectors, complete runs of domestic journals and serials from the late-eighteenth century to the present, a vast collection of foreign periodicals, doctoral and post-doctoral dissertation abstracts, all of these make up the General Collections of the RSL. Among its treasures are the collections of N. P. Rumiantsev, P. Ia. Chaadaev, V. F. Odoevskii, and M. P. Pogodin.

In the Rare Books and Valuable Editions Collection (The Museum of the Book) the century-by-century history of the Russian book comes to life from the beginnings of Russian book printing (associated with the name of Ivan Fedorov), to the adoption of a new civil script for secular books in the eighteenth century, to the birth of the serial press and the publication of the first Russian newspaper, Vedomosti (News), in 1703, to the publication of the monument of Old Russian literature, Slovo o polku Igoreve (The Lay of the Host of Igor), in 1800.

The collection of foreign early-printed books includes incunabula (fifteenth-century editions), paleotypes (publications from the first half of the sixteenth century), works published in the second half of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, the output of the most famous publishing houses, and first editions of the works of the greatest writers and scholars published during their lifetimes. Among the library's prize possessions is one of the world's most complete collections of Giordano Bruno first editions (eighteen of twenty-six published during his lifetime).

The collection includes masterpieces of the bookbinding art: books printed on unusual materials such as bark, satin, the thinnest of paper, and synthetic film; hand-woven books; and books of gigantic proportions, as well as miniatures. Noteworthy contemporary publications and books illustrated by famous foreign artists also are housed in the collection.

The Manuscripts Collection, one of the oldest archival centers in Russia, holds priceless manuscript books dating from the eleventh to the twentieth centuries. The collection includes one of the earliest dated Russian books, the Arkhangel'skoe evangelie of 1092; an eleventh-century glagolitic manuscript, the famous Mariinskoe evangelie; and the Evangelie Khitrovo, a precious relic of late-fourteenth-century book art attributed to the school of Andrei Rublev, the greatest artist of medieval Russia. Tens of thousands of manuscript books in Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian represent essentially the entire literary output of early Russia, the most valuable works of medieval artists, and the history of the nation's spiritual life over the centuries.

The library also collects Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese manuscripts. Its earliest Greek manuscript dates to the sixth century. The collection of West-European manuscript books also is very valuable, with the earliest piece dating to the twelfth century. The private archives of more than seven hundred prominent figures in Russian history, science, literature, and art from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries constitute an important part of the manuscripts collection. A significant share of the collection consists of autographs and documents assembled over the years by Russian scholars, writers, and antiquarian collectors.

The Central Reference Library contains more than three hundred thousand items and is the world's largest integrated collection of general and specialized reference and bibliographic works in Russian and the West-European languages. These works were published primarily between the early-nineteenth century and the present in traditional book format as well as on microfiche and CD- ROM. A vast amount of information in all disciplines amassed by world civilization is contained in the collection's encyclopedias, biographic and bio-bibliographic dictionaries, reference books of all kinds, and current and retrospective bibliographies and finding aids.

The Graphic Prints Division is a unique 1.5-million-piece collection of printed pictorial materials, some dating to the seventeenth century. The collection includes albums, posters, prints, book plates, engravings, lubki (inexpensive popular prints), reproductions, postcards, applied graphic art, photographs, and other visual materials. The division also houses the private collections of famous collectors.

With more than 250,000 items, the Maps Collection is the largest in Russia. It possesses unique manuscript and printed maps and atlases dating from the eighteenth century to the present, including a great range of thematically and physically diverse Russian and foreign maps, plans, relief maps, atlases, and digital maps, as well as graphic and illustrative supplements to cartographic publications. This is the most complete collection of twentieth-century Russian maps and atlases.

The Printed Music and Sound Recordings Collection comprises some four hundred thousand items, making it one of the world's largest Russian music collections and an important research and cultural resource. The entire range of Russian music is represented in the collection, along with the most important works from the international musical repertoire from the sixteenth century to the present. The collection includes autograph editions of the greatest Russian composers and an outstanding set of rare and valuable editions of musical scores from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

The Oriental Literature Center houses more than 650,000 items in 115 oriental languages, including books, journals, serials, and newspapers covering the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and engineering. The collection is especially strong in medieval works of history, philosophy, geography, philology, and belles lettres. The center's holdings of antiquarian books in Chinese (woodcuts), Japanese, and Hebrew are its crowning glory.

The Russian Emigre‚ Literature Division holds more than seven hundred thousand items, including the majority of the library's Rossika, the most valuable of which are the writings of Russian emigres published abroad after 1917, i.e., books, journals, newspapers, rare and valuable documents from the 1920s and 1930s, along with the works of Russian writers representing all the waves of emigration.

The Library Science and Bibliographic Literature Division (170,000 items) is a center of scholarly research, methodology, and training in librarianship. Its encyclopedias of library science, handbooks, guides to the world's major libraries, specialized dictionaries, IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations) conference papers, and library professional journals are a great asset. The collection of library journals includes the first issue of Library Journal, which appeared in 1876 along with complete runs of other domestic and foreign serials.

The Military Literature Division serves as the country's central armed-forces library and houses some six hundred thousand items. The collection includes scientific, popular, and memoir literature, as well as belles lettres, and covers the entire range of military science and operations. Military-related materials are available in Russian and other European languages in all formats except printed music and maps. Of particular interest are the rich collection of military newspapers, beginning with Russkii invalid (Russian Veteran), which debuted in 1813, the unique collection of army publications; and leaflets from the World War II era.

The Division of Official and Legal Publications, which collects official documents and production standards, has holdings in excess of 2.2 million items. It functions as a depository for UN and Council of Europe publications on human rights and incorporates the Legal Information Center, established jointly by the Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information and the Russian Legal Reforms Foundation.

The center provides the following services to corporate bodies and individuals:

• conducts searches and provides guidelines and legal information on Russian legislation;
• provides official guidelines and reference publications;
• conducts subject searches using online databases and the library's collections to retrieve and deliver a variety of legal information.

Among the resources of the center are the country's best electronic databases of legal reference information and an extensive collection of official serial publications.

The Newspapers Division boasts one of the largest collections in Russia with more than 50,000 newspaper titles in 120 languages. The collection provides access to newspapers going back to the year 1862 without regard to language or country of publication, content, type, intended audience, or format, It includes pre-revolutionary Russian newspapers, provincial gazettes, and papers from the first years of Soviet rule and the Civil War.

The Dissertations Division (more than 740,000 volumes) was established in 1944 as the national collection of dissertations in all disciplines except medicine and pharmacy. The collection also includes pre-defense dissertation abstracts. Since 1957 the division has published its catalog of post-doctoral and doctoral dissertations, and an electronic catalog of new dissertations has been maintained since 1996.

The Microforms Division was organized in 1998 to coordinate the use of microform materials, to protect original copies, to save space, and to meet the information needs of readers. The RSL began microfilming in 1947, and today the collection numbers more than 1.8 million items.

The RSL is a center of scholarship in the disciplines of library science, bibliographic methods, and the history of the book. The library's specialists are conducting such large-scale undertakings as "Russian Memory," "Discovering, Registering, and Preserving the Russian Federation's Monumental Books," "Coordinating the Acquisition of Rossica among Russian Libraries," the "National Collection of Official Documents," and other projects, and they participate in the preparation of legislation and regulations in the cultural sphere.

The RSL prepares union catalogs of Russian books and publishes authoritative bibliographic references and finding aids, as well as methodological materials for all aspects of librarianship. The library's publications--journals, scholarly works and practical manuals, popular encyclopedias and readers--invariably are in great demand among professionals and the reading public. The library's publishing activity has been reinvigorated since the founding of its own publishing house, Pashkov Dom, in 1998.

The Scientific Information Division, Informkul'tura, is the recognized authoritative source of information on cultural activities in Russia. It performs its mission by systematically identifying, collecting, organizing, and analyzing new domestic and foreign publications.

The Scientific Research Center of Document Conservation at the RSL conducts theoretical and applied research in the field of conservation and restoration, bringing back to life the most precious documents from the past. The center is also active in training highly qualified specialists.

The library's International Communications Center carries on large-scale international cooperation, not only with the libraries of various countries, but also with international professional, social, and nongovernmental organizations, including its permanent business partners IFLA, the International Standardization Organization (ISO), and UNESCO. The RSL took the initiative to establish the Eurasian Library Assembly, which is working well to promote the exchange of information and interlibrary cooperation within the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Information Technology Center develops and maintains the automated ILS (integrated library system), renders methodological assistance to other Russian libraries in installing computer systems, and actively cooperates in this area with both Russian and foreign partners.

The Internet and Digital Documents Room provides readers access to international sources of information and all types of electronic resources, including Internet, CD-ROM, the RSL's online catalog, and other electronic databases maintained by the library. Any reader at the RSL can find valuable information on the Internet, send and receive email, and scan parts of articles, books, or other documents held by the library.

The "Russian Courier" Electronic Document Delivery Service offers the following services:

• copying and delivery of documents by regular mail, fax, and Internet
• production of microfilm and microfiche
• reference and bibliographic searches
• compiling informational and analyical bulletins and surveys
• searches of online and other electronic databases
• rapid translation
• consulting
• special orders