Submitted by
David H. Kraus, Acting Chief
October 19, 1981

I. ACQUISITION OF MATERIALS

The most important acquisitions event for the Division was undoubtedly the Soviet specialist's trip to the Soviet Union for two weeks in October of 1980. The itinerary, arranged by the Ministry of Culture and the Lenin State Library, included a dozen important libraries in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev, and offered the opportunity to discuss acquisitions programs and the needs of the Library of Congress for Soviet publications. Upon his return, the Soviet specialist conferred with members of the Processing Department and other units of the Library concerning his findings. From some of the changes that followed the trip in the range of material offered the Library by Soviet institutions, in particular pre-Revolutionary publications and microfilm, and from the cooperation of the Soviet exchange partners, it can be concluded that the visit was of solid benefit. This trip was particularly important because it was the first visit by a division area specialist to the Soviet Union after many attempts, and the high level of support from the Librarian and the Soviet government ensured its success. Highly successful results also followed the acquisitions trip of the Finno-Ugrian specialist to Finland at the close of the past fiscal year. During the present fiscal year we received, as a result, a large number of Finnish academic periodicals that filled out the Library's holdings, as well as Finnish and Lappish monographs.

The volume of acquisitions recommendations by the European Division this year remained approximately the same as in the past fiscal year, despite tighter control over recommendations through a change in procedures for several countries, namely the review of national bibliography issues in which dealer selections are marked, versus the older method of reviewing cards of "nonselected" items. This, coupled with the monitoring of receipts in the Order Division for conformity with blanket-order agreements, has exercised a greater quality control over receipts and has resulted in a reduction in the number of marginal or unwanted publications sent by the blanket-order dealers, particularly from Hungary and Romania. Issues of the Soviet national bibliography were marked for recommendations and checked against receipts to determine whether the decrease in total receipts from the Soviet Union noted since the change in blanket-order dealers was a real decrease or reflected elimination of duplication. Although the study did not answer our question fully, it did show that we had received a very high percentage of desired items. Finally, we recommended that duplicate Soviet newspapers no longer be received on exchange, for they arrive only with great delay and serve little purpose.

Economy and the review of collection development principles were persistent themes over the year. The Acting Chief and Assistant Chief met with the Director for Area Studies on this matter in October of 1980. In February of 1981 they offered the Principal Acquisitions Officer their views on the criteria used by a major academic library for blanket orders versus the Library of Congress criteria, and in June of 1981 the division's recommending officers completed the Research Library Group forms evaluating the Library's collections by country on a detailed subject basis. This study is designed to show collection strengths nationwide for eventual sharing of collection development responsibilities among leading libraries.

Several important acquisitions were recommended in microform, through purchase or exchange. A recommendation of particular importance was the purchase of a further installment of the British Foreign Office files on Russia, which, when complete, will cover almost two centuries of records and will enable scholars who work with the equivalent American papers to arrive at a better analysis of events. In an unusual move, the National Széchenyi Library of Hungary offered the Library of Congress the choice of equivalent footage of anything it had already filmed, and offered to film anything the Library desired from its holdings in exchange for the Library's long run of a Hungarian-American newspaper. Other important film acquisitions were a thirty-year run of the Sankt Petersburger Zeitung, a pre-Revolutionary newspaper serving the influential German element of the Russian Empire, films of Soviet cinema journals, and films of pre-Revolutionary Russian railroad publications. The latter two subject areas also provided some exchange surprises, in that films are being received in installments in response to our request.

Among other non-print materials acquired through the division's efforts were recordings by visiting poets and writers for the Library's Archive of World Literature on Tape. Bulgarian literature was represented by the humorist and short-story writer Gencho Uzunov and by the poet Krassin Himmirsky. Czech literature was represented by Josef Škvorecký, an émigré writer, Romanian literature by the poets Alecu Ghilia and Mihai Ursachi, and Yugoslav literature by the poets Ivan Gacanski and Vuk Krnjević.

Our cultural contacts brought in many additions to the Library's collections in the form of gifts from ethnic organizations, individuals, academic and government institutions, and the diplomatic corps. Gifts also came from abroad, for example, from the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, and from the Slavic institute at Hokkaido University in Japan. An individual in England sent the Library 25-year runs of four Sorbian periodicals not reported by other U.S. libraries. The Sorbs are a Slavic minority in the German Democratic Republic. Briefings of visitors on the division's activities coupled with the presentation of copies of Library of Congress catalog cards to the visitors for their works held by the Library often resulted in gifts of works not held by the Library. As a result of one of these briefings, the Ambassador of Cyprus offered his personal assistance to find a reliable Cypriot blanket-order dealer for the Library. Since the partition of Cyprus, receipts from that country have been very uneven. The press and cultural attachés of Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic, the Netherlands, Romania, and Yugoslavia have all provided us with either publications or bibliographic references that have been of value.

In these diverse ways, and through cooperation with various units of the Library, we have attempted to meet the needs of the Library and its clients in our area of responsibility.

II. ORGANIZATION AND MAINTENANCE OF COLLECTIONS

Several actions were taken or proposed to make the Division's custodial materials more accessible to the readership. Through a contract and special project, more than half of the Russian pamphlet and brochure collection was brought under bibliographic control, to the extent that the items were searched and bibliographic entries made for them. This cataloging arrearage, totaling about 8,000 pieces, has proved to be a treasure trove, containing many rare or unique titles, as well as interrelated works that document intellectual or political movements in Russia and the USSR. The main body of the collection bears imprints of 1880 to 1940, but about 10% were published before 1880. The enthusiastic reception this material has received from visiting scholars who have learned of it and used it has encouraged us to propose that the remainder of the collection be brought under bibliographic control and that the bulk of the collection be filmed and, with its bibliographic guide, offered to other libraries. Our searches have shown that fewer than 10% of the titles have been reported by other libraries in the United States or Canada. First steps have been taken toward filming the uncataloged Imperial Russian government serial publications in the Division's custody. A list of the titles in this collection, with holdings details, had been prepared earlier and will accompany the film. This collection comprises 967 titles, very few of which have been reported elsewhere in North America.

The problem of dealing with the increasing volume of West European reference requests in the European Reading Room has been vexing. We have avoided any large-scale change in the composition of the reference collections in the reading room principally because of the lack of space to install sizable West European collections. This could be done only by reducing the present East and Central European collections by about half. This would destroy their effectiveness as a research base without creating an effective West European reference collection. Meanwhile, we are building a West European basic collection of 600-800 volumes, to help answer the more routine questions. The proposed new facilities for the Division will include a reading room of sufficient size to provide solid reference collections for all of Europe within the division's responsibility.

Some 800 cards were added to the files in the European Reading Room and the collection of telephone directories of East European cities was updated. The East European area file, which is maintained in the John Adams Building (LA 5146), was augmented by 9,650 cards. This file, containing principally Western language materials, is arranged by country and within country by subject and date of publication. It is a significant resource for research and reference purposes and is used by staff as well as visiting scholars. It is kept at approximately 760,000 entries, by culling outdated references. Eighty-five items were added to the pamphlet collection, which is maintained in the same room.

Two trends became apparent this year with respect to the current serials in the Division's custody. Borrowing by the Photoduplication Service was greater than by the Loan Division, reflecting increased reliance on copying, and there was a larger number of Not On Shelf reports from the current serials deck than in the past fiscal year (723 vs 383). We attribute most of this increase to a reduction in the number of journal subscriptions in favor of exchange, as an economy measure. The exchange copies arrive much more slowly than the subscription copies. The problem has not proved serious enough, however, to warrant a reconsideration of the dependence on exchange, but we are keeping a close eye on this situation.

The European Reading Room served several other units of the Library and government agencies by lending custodial materials, principally serials, and by providing delivery service from the current serials deck to patrons in the reading room. Most of the loans were to the Federal Research Division and the Photoduplication Division. In all, 47,766 items were circulated within the Library, an increase of more than 5,000 items over last year, while only 144 items were circulated outside the Library, a decrease of nearly 400 over last year, reflecting the trend to copy periodicals rather than lend them to outside government agencies.

III. USE OF MATERIALS

Reference Services

This year several events of international significance left their imprint on the division's activities. The Soviet presence in Afghanistan generated numerous inquiries from specialists, particularly about historical precedents, and from the general public. The political, social, and economic events surrounding the activities of Lech Wałesa and the Solidarity movement in Poland elicited a large number of inquiries of a diverse nature, some of them marginal to the movement itself but related in spirit. For example, interest was evinced in the reinstitution of the celebration of May 3 as a Polish national holiday (similar to our Fourth of July) after a prolonged government ban on its celebration. Other internationally significant events pertaining to Polish matters were the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Czesław Miłosz, an émigré Polish writer, and the award of best picture to film producer Andrzej Wajda at the 34th Cannes Film Festival for his Man of Iron, a movie based on the workers' uprising in the summer of 1980 that brought about sweeping changes in Poland. Both these events invited inquiries not only about the artists themselves but about Polish literature and films.

The majority of inquiries, however, concerned ongoing research and came from scholars working at the Library of Congress and other American libraries or learned institutions. Some examples of subjects of interest to our readers were Albanian-Yugoslav relations immediately following World War II, East European views of American literature, the policies of William of Orange with regard to France, Soviet technical education and science policy, and current West German fiscal policies.

Many requests were much more specific, for example, information was sought on the background for the return of the Crown of St. Stephen from the United States to Hungary in 1978, the fate of a library and art collection that had belonged to a noble Polish family, the offices held by certain Albanian communists, Soviet standards for the computer industry, the availability of published speeches by Romanian politicians of the interwar period, information on the German element of the Soviet population, descriptions of Yugoslav folk dances, and German versions of Aesop's fables.

Our specialists were called upon to supply bibliographic information and publication details of many European authors, composers, or artists, often in connection with articles or books in preparation. Some of the persons about whom detailed information was supplied were the Hungarian poet János Erdély, the Czechoslovak authors Martin Kukučín, Jaroslav Seifert, and František Halas, the German author Anna Seghers, the Czech composers Leoš Janáček and Antonín Dvořák, and the Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely. Seifert was one of those considered for the Nobel Prize in literature. The Finno-Ugrian specialist supplied detailed historical background information to the Hungarian-American artist, Sándor Bodó, for the painting he planned to undertake.

At times we are called upon to aid an organization trying to build a specialized collection for use of its members. For example, we furnished a Lithuanian-American organization a list of books and audio-visual aids suitable for that purpose; for the Los Angeles Times we recommended a basic library on contemporary East European affairs for an office they planned to set up in Europe; and for a Greek-American cultural association we supplied extensive information on the Library's holdings of Modern Greek publications.

We served Congress in several ways, including translations from and to several East European languages. In answer to congressional requests we supplied information on Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who disappeared from Hungary in 1945, and on the employers of the Czech writer Franz Kafka and economic conditions in the Czechoslovakia of his times. On a more personal note, we briefed a congressman of Hungarian extraction and his wife on the Library's Hungarian collections.

Requests for information were also received from abroad. For example, the Institute for East European Studies in Amsterdam asked about periodicals published in Riga, Latvia, between the wars, a member of the Japanese government sought information on early Russian-Japanese contacts and boundary disputes, a scholar in Frankfurt requested bibliographic information on Herbert Marcuse that was not available in Germany, a researcher in Australia sought information on members of the Romanov family, and a faculty member at the University of Calgary inquired of sources on Canadian-Soviet relations.

Another aspect of our reference activities is the preparation of displays or exhibits. A display honoring the Polish diplomat and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski was installed in the European Reading Room in June, 1981, on the fortieth anniversary of Paderewski's death.

The professional staff finds great satisfaction in assisting scholars, libraries, and the public who depend on the Division's expertise and the Library's collections.

Bibliography and Publications

There were significant changes in the ongoing American Bibliography project. The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), under a three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, employed an editor and assistant editor to take responsibility for the 1980, 1981, and 1982 volumes of the bibliography. The new editorial staff and the old, i.e., the division staff members who have acted in this capacity since 1973, reviewed procedures in depth and made changes, particularly in the handling of serials, designed to speed completion of the outstanding annual volumes. The AAASS improved its procedures for handling the manuscript volumes produced by the European Division, both with respect to preparing the masters from which the volume is produced and with respect to the speed with which the completed volume is published. During the current fiscal year, the 1977 volume of the bibliography was published and the 1978 volume was submitted to the publisher (AAASS). The 1979 volume is about two-thirds completed, the 1980 volume is approximately at the half-way mark, and the 1981 volume is about one-fourth completed. The first galleys of the 1978 volume have been received for proofreading. The 1977 volume contains 6,934 entries, the 1978 volume, 6,844 entries, covering works by U.S. and Canadian authors on the social sciences and humanities in Eastern Europe.

Two pamphlets in the division's series on Europeans who had a significant impact on American history were published this year by the Library: Tadeusz Kosciuszko, 1746-1817: A Selective List of Reading Materials in English, by Janina W. Hoskins, was published in October, 1980, and Tomáš G. Masaryk, 1850-1937: A Selective List of Reading Materials in English, by George J. Kovtun, appeared in May, 1981. These pamphlets are illustrated and contain brief biographical information. The manuscript of a similar pamphlet on the Marquis de Lafayette has been completed and is awaiting publication action, and one on Ignacy Jan Paderewski is in preparation. The popularity of this series is exemplified by the request for 500 copies of the Kosciuszko pamphlet by a bank in Kosciuszko, Mississippi to be distributed at the town's centennial celebration.

Mr. Kovtun prepared bibliographic entries for U.S. publications by the Czech author Jaroslav Hašek in translation and about Hašek as the Library's contribution to an international bibliography on Hašek to be published in Czechoslovakia in 1983, the hundredth anniversary of that author's birth.

The machine-readable data base is being used more and more by the staff as a basic step in preparing bibliographies. The American Bibliography project as well as the division's professional staff in the Adams Building are becoming increasingly dependent on the computer terminal for their bibliographic searches, but our efforts to procure a terminal have been unsuccessful to date. Competition for nearby terminals is becoming more intense, often requiring searching at inconvenient times. The typed ad hoc bibliography in response to a reader request is almost a thing of the past, being replaced by a printout. The lack of a terminal in the European Reading Room, despite numerous requests for one, is also hampering our reference and bibliographic work.

We continue our cooperation with other area-studies divisions in the bibliographic field. We send and receive copies of bibliographic entries. On our part, we supply principally cards from the American Bibliography project. Our principal bibliographic contact outside the Library continues to be the University of Illinois academic search service.

IV. ADMINISTRATION AND PERSONNEL

The staffing picture brightened this year. We were able to fill the German/Dutch area specialist position in November, 1980, with the appointment of Mrs. Margrit Krewson, formerly of the Loan Division. In August, 1981, we acquired the services of a work study student, Ms. Cheryl Talley, to serve as a messenger. This was particularly important because the relocation of many processing services to the Madison Building has resulted in a substantial increase in the time required to pick up materials for delivery to European Division worksites in the Adams and Jefferson buildings. In July, 1981, Mrs. Krewson was granted a year's leave of absence (LWOP) to return to Germany for further study, and the German/Dutch position was posted for temporary incumbency, not to exceed one year.

The division also celebrated some service milestones. Mr. Andrew Fessenko completed thirty years of service and Dr. Johas Balys twenty-five years of service to the Library during this fiscal year. Dr. Balys, senior reference librarian and Baltic area specialist, retired from government service in August, 1981.

Mrs. Roberta Goldblatt prepared bibliographic entries for Russian pamphlets in the division's custody, first under Agreement A80-212, then as a special project. Mr. Jurij Dobczansky was detailed to the Manuscript Division for four weeks to help organize a file of Russian-language materials.

A gradual reduction of division staff time spent on the American Bibliography project began in October, 1980, with the arrival of Dr. Zenon Kohut and Dr. Stephen Paczolt, bibliography editors in the employ of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, sponsor of the bibliography. They have given the Division staff some assistance on the 1977-79 volumes of the Bibliography, in addition to preparing the 1980-82 volumes.

Division staff members participated in several courses and workshops offered by the Library. Albert Graham attended the seminar on Copyright deposits, and most members of the professional staff attended the seminars held by the Preservation Office. The Acting Chief attended a course on AACR-2. The Acting Chief and Assistant Chief gave presentations on the division's activities and resources at sessions of the Training Office course on reference resources in the Library, and the Acting Chief discussed the reference activities of the area studies divisions in several briefings of new staff members of the Library.

The Division management staff also served on several Library committees. The Acting Chief was a member of the Advisory Group on the Future of LC Retrieval Systems, RAG, through April, 1981. He also served on the Working Group on the Future of the Catalogs. The Acting Assistant Chief was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Acquisitions Policy Development.

The Acting Chief and Assistant Chief prepared detailed plans for the use of space in the division's projected relocation in the Jefferson Building.

V. ACTIVITIES IN PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS

Not only the library associations but also the area studies associations were concerned with the momentous changes that occurred in the Library's processing practices this year – freezing of the catalogs, adoption of AACR-2, minimum-level cataloging, and the revision of the priority system. Those of us at professional meetings found we were questioned as much about these matters as about the more conventional matters of acquisitions, holdings, and area-studies activities. The related themes of collection development, collection management, the sharing of responsibility for collection development among libraries, and more effective communication among libraries also came in for considerable discussion. It is regrettable that funds for travel were so meager at this time of heightened activity. However, division staff members were able to play an active role in professional organizations despite financial limitations.

Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. Dr. Balys served on the Bibliography Committee and completed the editorial work on his Lithuanian Periodicals in American Libraries. A Union List, which is now with the Publications Office. This is a part of the union list of Baltic serials which the Association has placed high among its priorities.

Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS). Mr. Kraus, Ms. Popovitch, and Dr. Hoskins attended the Twelfth National Convention of the AAASS in Philadelphia in November, 1980. Mr. Kraus, ex-officio member of the Bibliography and Documentation Committee, reported on the division's bibliographic activities and on the American Bibliography project. He also chaired a workshop on automation in libraries. Dr. Hoskins presented a paper on Polish history, and Ms. Popovitch spoke on Yugoslav literature. Dr. Hoskins attended the International Congress of Soviet and Slavic Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in West Germany and took part in the Slavic Librarians' Roundtable. The AAASS was one of the sponsors of this conference. Dr. Hoskins also attended the Thirteenth Annual Convention of the AAASS held in Monterey, California, in September, 1981.

American Historical Association (AHA). Dr. Hoskins attended the National Convention of the AHA in Washington, D.C., and was a member of the Slavic Panel. Dr. Allen contributed bibliographic articles to Recently Published Articles, a publication of the AHA.

American Library Association (ALA). Mr. Kraus attended sessions of the Midwinter Meeting of the ALA in Washington that related to European acquisitions, particularly West European, and spoke on the collection surveys that had been undertaken or sponsored by the European Division. The division subsequently hosted numerous visitors from ALA. Mr. Kraus attended the 100th Annual Conference of the ALA in San Francisco in June, 1981, where he attended meetings on East and West European Librarianship and spoke on visits by Soviet and East European librarians to the Library of Congress and on visits by the European Division staff to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Association of Research Libraries. Mr. Kraus is chairman of the East European Acquisitions Committee.

In addition to participation in these professional associations that are directly related to library or area studies, staff members of the division were active in other organizations. Dr. Bako served as president of the Society of Federal Linguists and scheduled several programs dealing with area-studies libraries and collections. He was the featured speaker at the Fifth Annual Kalevala Day Celebration in Washington and attended seminars organized by the National Institute of Education concerning language and international education. He attended the 1981 spring conference of the Greater Washington Association of Teachers of Foreign Languages, and participated in a panel on ethnic heritage and the federal government service.

Mr. Kovtun lectured in the Czechoslovak Room of the University of Pittsburgh on "T.G. Masaryk's Philosophical and Political Development before 1914."

Mr. Kraus was invited by the Center for Northwest European Language and Area Studies at the University of Minnesota to speak on the West European holdings and activities of the Library of Congress and to discuss related matters with various units of the university libraries. Subsequently he was invited to serve on a steering committee to advise that center on its plans for a national conference of West European library specialists.

Staff members also published the results of their private research. Mr. Kovtun's essay, "T.G. Masaryk's Road to Revolution" was published in T.G. Masaryk in Perspective: Comments and Criticism. Washington: SVU Press, 1981. He was a frequent contributor of reviews to the Czech émigré journal Svědectví, published in Paris. Ms. Popovitch contributed to the Serbian cultural journal Njegoš. Mr. Dobczansky translated and edited Vasyl Romanyuk: A Voice in the Wilderness, which was published by the Society for the Study of Religion under Communism, an affiliate of Easton College, England.

Visitors

Visitors were tangible evidence of the division's external relations, and demonstrated the cultural and geographic diversity of the division's contacts. In many cases, the visitors came as a result of correspondence or telephone communication to further their research. In some cases they were brought by members of the diplomatic corps with whom the division had frequent contact, and some came merely to visit their area of interest in a great library. The division's foreign and domestic visitors this year were still dominantly from or interested in central or eastern Europe, but the number coming from or interested in western Europe increased over previous years. A better balance will certainly be reached when West European specialists are added to our staff. We spent considerable time with these visitors, but the investment was mutually beneficial. We were able to keep up with developments at home and abroad first-hand, the visitors gained a better understanding of the Library, and frequently the contacts lead to better exchanges or resulted in gifts to the Library.

Several of the visitors, their professions, or the institutions they represented are cited by way of example: Ambassadors Stojan Zhulev of Bulgaria and Andrew Jacovides of Cyprus; Anatoly Djuzhev, Cultural Counselor of the Soviet Embassy; the press and cultural attachés of the Bulgarian, Czechoslovak, Polish, and Yugoslav embassies; four members of the French Parliament; the rector of Warsaw University; the acquisition's librarian of the national library of Hungary; the head of the Slavic section of the British Library; journalists and writers representing Budapest and Belgrade Television, the newspapers Kurier Lubelski (Lublin, Poland) and Népszabadság (Budapest), the literary journals Obzor (Sofia, Bulgaria), Studie (Rome), and Ramuri and Magazin istoric of Bucharest; several score of American and European scholars representing the whole range of the social sciences and humanities; Slavic and West European librarians from Northwestern University, Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Illinois; and representatives from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the École Supérieur in Paris, the universities of Birmingham and Manchester, and Tel Aviv University, Israel.