Submitted by
David H. Kraus, Acting Chief
October 20, 1978

I. ACQUISITION OF MATERIALS

"The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice" [George Eliot in Daniel Deronda, VI, 42]

This motto aptly defines the task the Division faces in its acquisition efforts. We must ensure that the Library holdings grow not only in numbers but in strength. The Division deals with an area that produces about one third of the world's books and with a broad range of materials relevant to this area that are published elsewhere. There are nineteen countries in the region of our primary responsibility, with works appearing in many more than that number of languages. It is, therefore, an intricate problem to select materials that will best answer to the Library's present and future needs. Of course, we do not act alone in selecting materials about this region. Other divisions make selections on the basis of special format and subject, but this Division must view the whole range of publications that relate to the area. The Library's printed cards give, perhaps, the best picture of the weight of acquisitions from Central and Eastern Europe. In FY 1978 this Division surveyed 172,800 new printed cards, of which 46,600 (27%) dealt with our region. There were 17,000 cards for works relating to the German lands, 16,645 for materials in Russian and Ukrainian, and the remainder dealt with the other Slavic and East European nations. The Division has not yet been assigned the personnel to engage in acquisitions activities for the West European countries added to the Division's area of responsibility in the last quarter of this fiscal year.

The true measure of the Library's acquisitions programs and collections, however, is the degree to which it meets the needs of its clients. It has been the Division's experience that the Library's collections contain an abundance of information on any given topic in our field in the overwhelming majority of cases. In cases where the Library fails to provide the reader with the resources required, the Division attempts to find the missing material elsewhere and to recommend its acquisition. In recent years microforms and reprints have become an increasingly important acquisition resource. Often films are the only available source, frequently they are cheaper than the original, and, in the case of the numerous East European publications issued on poor paper during times of trouble, film lasts longer. Some significant acquisitions this year were 77 reels of film of Polish serials dealing with agrarian and social problems since 1918, a vast collection of film of British Foreign Office documents about Russia, copies of pamphlets and serials issued by Russian political émigrés before 1917, the Polish periodical Korespondent Warszawski (1792-1841), and a series of early Ukrainian publications. The Division staff also cooperates closely with the Preservation Microfilming Office in recommending Library materials for preservation and films available from outside sources to replace or complete Library holdings. Two of the more important recommended items that were available commercially or by exchange were films of Soviet and East European statistical publications and films of the publications of the legislative assembly of the Russian Empire. In both cases the Library held substantial portions of these publications, but they were in very poor condition. Following its goal of balanced growth, the Division keeps in close touch with other units of the Library, for example, the Principal Acquisitions Officer, the Order Division, and the Exchange and Gift Division, offering assistance in acquisitions matters in the form of information on publication and bibliographic practices in the Division's area, the present state of the Library's collections, and the probable development of scholarship. We also cooperate with other divisions in joint acquisition matters. For example, we informed the Orientalia Division of current Soviet publications and reference works on Asian countries and languages, acted jointly with the Children's Book Section in evaluating an offer of early Soviet Children's books, provided references to East European items on Latin America for the Hispanic Division, and cooperated with the Federal Research Division and the Science and Technology Division in acquisitions matters.

Although most of the Division's acquisition work is carried on within the Library, the area specialists also go elsewhere in search of materials or to learn of publication programs. Examples are the Polish specialist's visit to Polish émigré libraries in Paris, the German specialist's visit to libraries, book dealers, publishers, and official institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Yugoslav specialist's visit to exchange partners and the blanket-order dealer in Yugoslavia. The primary objective of such trips is to discover new and long-range sources of exchanges or other acquisitions sources.

We can take justifiable pride in having brought to the Library some noteworthy individual items, among which we may cite a gift of tapes of "man-in-the-street" interviews in Prague on August 21, 1968, the day Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia. The Division arranged for recording sessions that added readings by Russian, Yugoslav, Bulgarian, and Hungarian poets to the Library's Archive of World Literature on Tape. Our recommendation led to the acquisition of a film of a pre-1917 Russian journal on the cinema that helps illuminate the background from which Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and others were to come. A gift from a staff member, Cebetis Thebani, Socratisa; discipuli Tabula vitae totius humanae cursum graphice continens published in Kraków in 1524, added a rare item to the Library's collection of early Polish imprints. The Library's holdings on the history of American immigration, an area of intense interest among the Division's clients, were augmented by a film of the manuscript memoirs of Henry Kałussowski, physician and founder of the Polish Library in Chicago, a film of the Albanian-American newspaper, Dielli, from 1909 and Shifra A. Bogina's Immigrantskoe naselenie SShA, 1865-1900 gg (Moscow, Nauka, 1976. 273 p.), a study of immigrant groups in the United States in the post-Civil War years that is particularly interesting for its references to Soviet holdings of materials on German socialist activity in America. Another aspect of American life, and a guide to American cultural influence, is Valentina A. Libman's Amerikanskaia literatura v russkikh perevodakh i kritike; bibliografiia, 1776-1975 (Moscow, Nauka, 1977. 451 p.), a bibliography of Russian translations from and criticism of American literature, containing over 7,500 entries. An extremely interesting source on the history of Hawaii between 1890 and 1905 is M.I. Iosko's biography of N.I. Sudzilovskii-Russel' that appeared in Russian in Minsk in 1976. Sudzilovskii-Russel' was presiding officer of the Hawaiian Senate during its first session as a U.S. territory.

The task of acquiring a balanced collection on Europe is an endless one but also rewarding. The Division has been able to answer the needs of its readers at all levels of sophistication in the academic and governmental communities and among the general readers on the basis of the collections.

II. ORGANIZATION OF MATERIALS

The Slavic Room was renamed the European Room in August, 1978 in keeping with the change in name of the Division from Slavic and Central European to European. This is a more accurate name for the room, inasmuch as ten of the countries or languages represented in the room are non-Slavic. The European Reading Room collections were systematically updated by the Division's area specialists and reference librarians, keeping in mind acute space problems. Approximately 300 volumes were added to the collection, with the removal of about the same number of volumes of older materials. Some 600 cards were added to the Cyrillic Union Catalog supplement, bringing it to about 19,000 items. This catalog, which is maintained in the reading room, is derived from the pre-1956 Cyrillic imprints that have been cataloged by the Library since 1956. It is kept in the immediate proximity of a microprint copy of the Cyrillic Union Catalog and serves as a valuable ready-reference source for both Library staff and readers. The Division staff updated the New York Times clippings file on Eastern Europe and the East European telephone directory collection maintained in the reading room, as well as the brochure collection and the East European Area File which are housed in the Division's area of the Thomas Jefferson Building. This latter file, which is a heavily used reference source, comprises about 160,000 cards on the social, cultural, political, and economic life of East Europe and is arranged by country and within country by subject and date. It consists primarily of references to recent journal articles in Western languages and is accessible to both Library staff and readers. Approximately 10,000 cards were added to it this year, a large portion of which was produced by The American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies.

The Division has custody of several collections of older (1880-1940) Cyrillic imprints that constitute cataloging arrearages. These collections are kept in the Northwest Attic of the Library of Congress Building and are serviced by the European Reading Room staff. A study area has been created adjacent to these collections and is frequently used, often for weeks at a time, by visiting scholars. The Attic is temperature and humidity controlled to protect these valuable collections, which are especially rich in Imperial and early Soviet government publications and in 19th-century literary and cultural journals. The Division's Russian specialist selected several hundred volumes from these collections for full cataloging. The materials in these collections bear temporary catalog numbers and are listed in the Cyrillic and Slavic Union catalogs.

A graduate student of library science from the University of Maryland, as part of his work-study program in the Division, selected 100 Polish titles from the current serials on Deck 18 to analyze and classify as a model for a future machine-readable subject-analytic guide to the serials on Deck 18. In this project he worked closely with the Acting Chief and the Bibliographic Systems Office.

The volume of loans of current serials in the Division's custody remained high: approximately 4,000 items were loaned to other units of the Library, the Federal Research Division being a major recipient, 54,000 items were requested for use in the Slavic Room, and 1,860 items were loaned to outside agencies. This is a strong indication of the value of Slavic and Baltic periodicals as research tools.

III. USE OF MATERIALS

a. Reference

There is nothing quite so satisfying for a librarian than to guide a reader to the reference source he needs. One of the Division's major commitments along those lines is to Congress. Most Congressional requests are channeled to and from the Division through the Congressional Research Service, but at times Congress draws directly on this Division's specialized knowledge of its area of responsibility. For example, we supplied information on the forced repatriation to the USSR of emigrants from the USSR in the immediate post-War era (1945-46), on the archives of the Russian Orthodox parishes in Alaska, on Latvian units that participated in the Russian Revolution, and on themes of interest to a Congressman's audience of Polish background. Often the Division provides a legislator with a tape to assist him or her to pronounce foreign phrases to be used in a speech or address, and frequently the Division provides translations for congress from languages not in the scope of the Congressional Research Service staff.

We also receive a constant flow of requests from other government agencies. These vary from simple bibliographic inquiries to complicated matters of international politics. Examples of agencies served are the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Hirshhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, the Immigration and Naturalization Office, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the U.S. Information Agency.

Inquiries from college and university libraries and faculty members or graduate students form the largest group of information requests received by the Division. Usually these are the most complex requests, the inquirer having exhausted local resources. In many cases, the university researcher works in the Library of Congress and the Division for an extended time, frequently in the European Reading Room or the Northwest Attic. The myriad of topics of inquiry this year included Eugene O'Neill's reception in the Soviet Union, censorship in Imperial Russia, the attitude of the United States toward the formation of the Balkan States, the history of a Russian medal given to one of the kings of Hawaii, historical sources on the Hessian soldiers who participated in the American Revolution, European antecedents of the U.S. Cavalry, and education in Eastern Europe. A small sampling of university inquirers includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Indiana, Northwestern, Hawaii, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Portland State.

Inquiries from abroad also constituted a considerable portion of the Division's reference work. Some typical clients this year were the Historisk Institutt of Oslo University, Monash University of Australia, Hankuk University in Seoul, the University of Zagreb in Yugoslavia, the University of Natal in South Africa, and the University of Leeds in England. Such inquiries ranged from requests for information about individual items to inquiries about Library resources for research in a particular field and the possibilities of arranging for an extended stay at the Library. Several distinguished visitors from abroad were given in-depth assistance by the Division staff. These included Mr. Milan Georgijević of the Yugoslav State Archives, Mr. Andrei N. Suvorov, Third Secretary of the Soviet Embassy, Dr. Karl Drechsler of the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic, Dr. Carl Barkman, Netherlands Ambassador to NATO, Dr. Christian Popisteanu, Editor of the Romanian Magazin istoric, Miss Danuta Rychter of the Polish Association of Publishers, and Dr. Haris Silajdžić, Professor of Arabic at the Albanian university in Priština, Yugoslavia. The general public, domestic and foreign, expressed at least as broad a range of interests as the scholars. A newspaper reporter from New Orleans, having discovered several letters of Catherine the Great, asked us to identify them and indicate their significance. Other topics of interest to the general reader were German settlers in Hungary, Polish hussar uniforms, Greek history, the career of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary, Russian stoves, and American firms involved in trade with Eastern Europe. By far the greatest topic of interest to the general reader, however, was his "roots" – his family history or information on the country, city, or village from which his ancestors came to America. Most inquiries from the general reader are made in person or by telephone in the European Reading Room, while the more complicated requests are directed to the area specialists. In many cases, the request requires joint action by the European Division and other divisions of the Library, most frequently the Asian Division, the Manuscript Division, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, or the European Law Division.

From time to time the laborer needs assurance that he is worthy of his hire, and the thank-you letters received by the Division give such assurance. The Defense and Military Attaché of the Greek Embassy expressed "sincere thanks for the most comprehensive and informative briefing" given him. The work of a Hungarian scholar was advanced by the "signal kindness and cooperation" of the staff. A scholar in New York wrote, "How can I thank you for the information you have sent me? I know how much time and effort you put into this. The information you have supplied is most useful and will be of great help in my research." An official of the CIA was "very appreciative of the hospitable welcome provided by your Division during the recent visit of CIA analysts to the Library of Congress." The Director of Research Programs of the Modern Language Association expressed "sincere appreciation for your thoughtful and detailed letter about bibliographic sources on Soviet linguistics." These and many more expressions of thanks received by the Division add a further dimension to the pleasure the staff derives in carrying out its reference activities.

Exhibits

A major exhibit, "Overview of Western Research on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe," was mounted in the West Lobby, Fifth Floor, of the Thomas Jefferson Building. It featured monographic and serial publications of the principal centers of research on Eastern Europe in North America and Western Europe, and was opened to coincide with the Ninth Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) held in Washington in October of 1977. Two smaller exhibits, "Decorated Eggs of Eastern Europe" and "Elias Lönnrot and His Kalevala," shown in the European Reading Room, drew many viewers. The Lönnrot exhibit, prepared by the Finno-Ugrian specialist, was accompanied by a booklet which contained biographical information on Mr. Lönnrot and the history of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, a catalog of the materials exhibited, and a bibliography of Kalevala editions and critical literature. A major exhibit, "Russians Look at America," is in preparation for display in late fall of 1978.

b. Bibliography and Publications

The Division's ongoing bibliography project, The American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies, dominated this year's bibliographic activities. The 1976 volume, the fourth in the series to be compiled at the Library, was completed this year. It comprises more than 5,000 entries covering works of U.S. and Canadian authors on the social sciences and humanities as they pertain to Eastern Europe. This volume features a considerable expansion of the coverage of "ethnic publications," i.e., publications in East European languages or in English published in the United States or Canada pertaining to immigration from Eastern Europe and the cultural life of the immigrants. This volume also saw a marked increase in the number of journals screened (about 200 new titles). The bibliography is sponsored, published, and distributed by the leading professional organization in the field, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. The 1977 and 1978 volumes of the bibliography are in progress.

Two other major bibliographies were completed by the Division. The second, revised and enlarged edition of The Federal Republic of Germany, a Selected Bibliography of English-Language Publications, a 116-page bibliography consisting of 1,325 entries with index, was published for the Library by the U.S. Government Printing Office. The fourth, extensively revised edition of The USSR and Eastern Europe: Periodicals in Western Languages is in the galley stage and is scheduled for publication early in 1979. Work is nearing completion on Dr. Jaroslav Rudnyckyj's preliminary survey of the Ukrainian collections of the Library. This survey of the largest and most diverse collection of Ukrainica in the Western Hemisphere will be a significant contribution to knowledge of Slavic resources in America. The final draft is scheduled for completion in 1979.

In addition to its own bibliographic activities, the Division cooperates with other bibliographic efforts, both within and outside the Library. Over the past year the Division has acted as a frequent consultant to the Asian Division in anticipation of the transfer of the Bibliography of Asian Studies to the Library. That bibliography bears many similarities to The American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies. The Division routinely supplies bibliographic information to the other area divisions, particularly to the Hispanic Division in support of the Handbook of Latin American Studies. The Finno-Ugrian specialist assisted the General Reference and Bibliography Division in preparing "The Holy Crown of Hungary: A Selected List of References," which appeared in the January 20, 1978 issue of the Library of Congress Information Bulletin. The Division contributed bibliographies and bibliographic news items to the ARL (Association of Research Libraries) Foreign Acquisitions Newsletter. Further, the Library and the Division cooperated with the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies in its compilation of a union list of Baltic periodicals, by assigning the Division's Baltic specialist to compile a list of Library of Congress holdings of serials published in or about Lithuania. This compilation is scheduled for completion in 1979. In addition, the Division works very closely with the Bibliographic Search Unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which serves as a clearing house for university and college library inquiries about pre-1956 Cyrillic imprints.

Finally, the Division worked actively for the publication of the Slavic Union Catalog (SUC) as a research tool and cooperated with the Office of the Assistant Director for Processing Services in preparing a description of the SUC to accompany an Invitation to Bid to publishers. Presently this catalog, comprising about 450,000 cards representing 315,000 titles and 750,000 locations, is available only in the Library of Congress. Its publication would be, perhaps, the most significant publication in the Slavic field in the past twenty years.

IV. ADMINISTRATION AND PERSONNEL

On July 31, 1978 the Division's name was changed from the Slavic and Central European Division to the European Division, and the Division's area of responsibility was enlarged to include France and Italy, the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), and the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), as well as enclaves such as San Marino, Monaco, and the Vatican City. Corresponding specialist positions were not appropriated, however, so that during this fiscal year only minimal work was possible in the new areas of responsibility.

A major change occurred in the Division's personnel situation as well. Dr. Paul L. Horecky retired as Chief of the Division after twenty-six years of service in the Division in positions of ever increasing responsibility culminating in his appointment as Chief in 1972. Following Dr. Horecky's retirement, on 30 December 1977, the Assistant Chief, Mr. David H. Kraus, was appointed Acting Chief and Dr. Robert V. Allen was appointed Acting Assistant Chief.

Dr. Stephen Paczolt was selected to fill the new, temporary position of Bibliographic and Editorial Assistant, which was created to meet the Division's pressing needs in these two areas. Mr. Albert E. Graham taught a Russian course for Library staff members as part of the Training Office program and received a Meritorious Service Award and a letter of commendation from the Librarian in recognition of his personal contribution to the development and improvement of the course. Mr. Jurij Dobczansky took courses toward an MLS at Catholic University under the Library's tuition support program. Mr. Marek Kaszubski, a graduate student at the University of Maryland School of Library Science spent one semester in the Division as part of his work-study program for an MLS degree.

The Acting Chief attended the U.S. Civil Service Commission's training program "Library of Congress Labor Relations: Effective Contract Administration," and the Division secretaries attended the Training Office course "Transactional Analysis."

The Acting Chief served as a member of the Working Group on the Future of the Catalog, representing the area studies divisions, the Working Group on Non-Roman Alphabets in MARC, and the Ad Hoc Committee on the Archive of World Literature on Tape.

V. EXTERNAL RELATIONS

It is vital to the work of our Division that we have extensive relations with the scholarly and institutional world within our sphere of interests. An excellent opportunity for broad participation in professional activities was offered by the Ninth Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies which attracted more than 1,800 Slavic and East European scholars to Washington in October of 1977. The Division held open house for participants, including talks on the Division's and Library's activities in the field and the viewing of an exhibit the Division prepared for the occasion. Division staff members served on several panels at the convention and played host to well over a hundred participants who came for the open house or for individual consultations.

Over the year, there was a steady flow of visitors to the Division on international exchange programs, research missions, or to gain an orientation into the Library's activities. They represented learned institutions, government agencies, business firms, or independent writing or publication programs, and they came from many areas of the world – not only from the areas of our immediate interest, but from Asia, Latin America, and Australia. Some of them were persons of prominence, including the Russian writer Valentin Kataev, the grand old man of Soviet literature, Iu. Ia. Barabash, Minister of Culture of the USSR, and Dr. Stefan Hurmuzache, Chief of the Romanian State Archives. Many other visitors represented their country's intellectual pursuits or interest in the exchange of information or publications. Typical, perhaps, were a representative of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, a librarian from the University of Edinburgh, a researcher from the École en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and the editor of a Polish Catholic newspaper. There were frequent visitors from the Embassy staffs in Washington, including those of Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, the Soviet Union, Austria, and the Federal Republic of Germany. The Division also played host to visitors who came as groups – West German librarians, Yugoslav poets, analysts from the CIA, library aides from a suburban high school, area-studies majors from a state college in Pennsylvania, and others.

The Division's activities included cooperation with other government agencies. The Czechoslovak specialist served as a consultant at a four-day working session of the Ethnic Heritage Program, U.S. Office of Education, held to evaluate projects in ethnic studies, and the Finno-Ugrian specialist recorded a presentation on "Hungary in the 18th Century American Press" for the Voice of America for broadcast to Hungary.

All these activities, we feel, are essential to our work and to our understanding of research trends, professional concerns, and popular interests in our fields of specialization.

VI. PROFESSIONAL BUT UNOFFICIAL

The members of the Division Staff, in addition to the work they do in their official position, often engage in professional activities in their private capacities. They are members of scholarly associations or they carry on research and writing outside the office.

Dr. Robert V. Allen served as section editor for Recently Published Articles, a publication of the American Historical Association.

Dr. Elemer Bako was elected Vice-President of the Society of Federal Linguists, for which he also served as program chairman and as editor of its publication, The Federal Linguist. At the April meeting of the American Hungarian Educators Association he presented a paper on Finno-Ugrian library holdings in the United States.

Dr. Jonas P. Balys is a member of the Bibliography Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. He attended the Third Lithuanian Symposium on Arts and Sciences in Chicago in November, 1977, at which he presented a paper on the social aspects of the songs of Lithuanian emigrants. His article on the principals of mythology appeared in Naujoji Viltis (Chicago), no. 10, pp. 40-51, 1977.

Mr. Albert E. Graham was the author of "Soviet Strategy and Policy in the Indian Ocean" that appeared in the 1978 volume of Naval Policy in Soviet Power.

Mr. George J. Kovtun serves on the editorial board of the Czech-language journal Svědectví (Paris) and is a frequent contributor to it.

Mr. David H. Kraus served as ex officio member of the Bibliography and Documentation Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), and was appointed chairman of the East European Acquisitions Committee of the Association of Research Libraries. In July he led a seminar on Slavic bibliography, primarily on activities and facilities of the Library of Congress, at the Summer Research Laboratory on Russia and Eastern Europe, held at the University of Illinois in Urbana.

Mr. Basil Nadraga is treasurer of the Ukranian Library Association of America.

Ms. Ruzica Popovitch is on the editorial board of the Serbian-language journal Njegoš and is a regular contributor to it.

Dr. Arnold H. Price served as section editor for Central Europe for Recently Published Articles, took part in sessions of the Conference Group on Central European History and of the American Committee on the History of the Second World War that were held as part of the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Dallas, and participated in the Twenty-First Medievalist Meeting held in Cologne, Germany.