(for the year ending June 30, 1926)

Accessions. During the last year the number of the Slavic publications in the section has been increased by about 5,000 volumes acquired by purchase and transfer from the executive departments and through exchange and gifts. The majority of these publications are of an informative character, official reports, scientific investigations, literary reviews, laws, statistics, etc., and came from Russia. In addition, orders for over 1,000 Russian publications approximately of the same classes have been placed. Including the Slavic publications acquired before and since the accession of the original Yudin Collection of 80,000 volumes, the present size of the Slavic Section is about 120,000 volumes — one of the largest Russian libraries outside of Russia.

Technical work in the section has been advanced though it is still in arrears owing to the lack of workers in previous years. During this year about 14,200 books and pamphlets, including serials, were classified in accordance with the outline of the Library classification system, and 1,975 new index cards have been written, including the shelflisting of serials, 567 titles, and Russian publications on the causes of the world war, in number about 150.

Changes in personnel. At the beginning of the year Mr. N. Vinokouroff was transferred to the Catalogue Division for the purpose of shelflisting the current Russian publications, and later two assistants were appointed to the Slavic Section, namely, Mr. N. Rodionoff, in September, 1925, and Mr. G. Novossiltzeff, in June, 1926. Both these assistants are continuously engaged in the technical work and it may be expected that a large part of the Yudin Collection will be indexed during the coming year.

Demand upon the section has been the same as in previous years. In addition to the translations and bibliographical research for members of Congress, for executive departments and readers considerable assistance was rendered to six persons working on their master and doctor theses related to the Slavic affairs and problems, and to nine experts sent from Russia to study certain economic and social phases of American life. These people, before going into their field of study, came first to the Library in order to get acquainted with the literature on their subject. Not being familiar with our Library system and facilities and often having a slight knowledge of the spoken English, they naturally turn to the Slavic Section for guidance and assistance, which the section could not well refuse to give them.

Assistance to other divisions in the matters of Slavic publications was considerably less this year, as the Catalogue, Documents, Reference, and Music Divisions now have Slavic workers on their staff.

P. A. Speek