(For the year ending June 30, 1923)

During the year the Library has acquired about 1,800 Slavic publications. The most noteworthy acquisition is a shipment of about 500 volumes from Moscow through a book dealer in New York. These publications are mostly of an informative character, containing reports on investigations and explorations, bibliography, statistics, decrees, treaties, etc. up to the present time. Another large order through the same agency is pending. The Library has continued to purchase publications issued by the Russian emigrants in countries outside of Russia.

Representative and informative Esthonian literature to the number of about 400 volumes has been received.

Among gifts received the most valuable are the periodical publications collected by the Russian Embassy during the war and revolutions. These publications, nearly two truck-loads — a library in itself — were presented to the Slavic Section by the Embassy when the latter was closed. In addition, the State and Commerce Departments have transferred to the Library their surplus and duplicate copies of Russian publications collected during the war and revolutions. The representative of the former Ukrainian Republic presented his library to the Slavic Section when he closed his office in Washington.

All these publications presented and purchased serve as rich sources of information in regard to the Russian conditions, the history of the Russian part in the war, and the history of the Russian March and October revolutions and the struggle between the Bol'sheviks and their opponents, including the boundary nations. Owing to the dominant position of our country at the close of the war and, therefore, to the importance of the Russian Embassy here, the representatives of every shade of Russian thought and political belief have sent their published programs, resolutions, decrees, papers, and books to the Russian Embassy during the past five or six years, while the State Department through its agencies in Russia and elsewhere has collected Russian informative publications in considerable numbers. Now all these publications are in the Library for safe-keeping and are available to students of Russian affairs.

Shelf-listing and cataloguing, after a lengthy interruption, is again in progress, while much technical work in the arrangement and binding of the periodicals waits to be done.

The interest of readers in Russian scientific investigations and research and in Russian music and stage art was noticeable during the year, and numerous inquiries in regard to the cooperative movement in Soviet Russia have lately been addressed to the Section.

P. A. Speek. In charge.