Submitted by
David H. Kraus, Acting Chief
October 19, 1987

PREFACE

Fiscal Year 1987 may be characterized as dynamic. The long vacant Russian/Soviet specialist position was filled and means were found to add a Scandinavian specialist to the staff. The specialist staff coped with acquisitions problems posed by budget cuts and devaluation of the dollar. There was a heavy demand for reference services from a highly diverse clientele with equally diverse and interesting topics of inquiry. Staff members were recognized in various ways for their services and accomplishments in the field, by invitations to participate in events or on committees. In the face of increased acquisitions and reference demands, Division staff managed to produce an impressive number of publications and to prepare for exhibits and symposia.

Rapid changes in personnel continued to complicate the Division's current serials and bibliographic activities, but did not bring them to a halt; in fact, some improvements were made in the organization and recording of the Division's custodial materials. Our traditional readers have found the European Reading Room in its new locations and many new readers, interested in Western Europe, have become regulars in the European Reading Room.

On the negative side, we still have to fill the positions of Finno-Ugrian Specialist and Automated Bibliographic Resources Librarian in order to function properly, and we need stability in the processing staff. These are problems we hope to surmount in the coming fiscal year.

I. MAJOR DEVELOPMENT

The 1985 volume of the American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies was produced entirely in the automated mode. This publication, compiled in the European Division since 1972 and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, had previously been prepared for publication manually. The automated procedure was developed by the bibliography's editor, Mrs. Roberta Goldblatt, who was assisted at various points by the Automation Office of the Research Services Department and by Mr. Robert Palian of the Music Division, who played a major role in the formatting.

The hardware/software system used to produce this volume and which will be used to produce future volumes of the bibliography, consists of a COMPAQ microcomputer, the Reflex database management program, Word Perfect, TeX, a page-formatting program that permits two- and three-column formatting, and a Hewlett-Packard laser jet printer.

The technique used to produce the 220-page 1985 volume of the American Bibliography will also be employed to compile and publish most of the publications of the Division. It offers possibilities for wide application to bibliographic works produced by the Library.

II. ACQUISITION OF MATERIALS

This year brought several significant changes to acquisitions. Funds for acquisitions in several key geographic areas were cut and in these same areas the value of the dollar decreased. Thus, much care had to be taken to ensure that the Library received the research materials it needed to fulfill its mission. The areas seriously affected were France, Italy, and West Germany. Some relief in the West German area came with a substantial gift for the purchase of current West German books through a non-profit West German foundation, Inter Nationes, which is dedicated to promoting German culture abroad. The German/Dutch specialist played a significant role in attracting this gift to the Library. The French/Italian specialist had to devote far more time than previously to selecting materials that would ordinarily have been selected by the blanket-order dealer. This particularly applied to Italy, for which current bibliographic resources are inadequate.

Improvement of acquisitions from West and East Germany, especially from East Germany, was ensured by an acquisitions trip to those countries by the German/Dutch specialist in August/September of 1987. On this two-week trip she visited eight libraries and three book dealers to improve exchanges and to discuss publishing trends. Division specialists were able to discuss specifics of the blanket order for Hungary, West Germany, and Czechoslovak émigré publications when the pertinent blanket-order dealers visited the Library. Recommendations by Division specialists increased slightly this year despite cuts in some allotments, with East European prices holding steady. The Czechoslovak and Polish specialists recommended bibliophile editions from between the wars. The Polish specialist also surveyed the Library's holdings of the Polish visual arts, in connection with her survey of the collections for an upcoming publication (see Section V) and the receipt of a large dealer's catalog. The Czechoslovak specialist recommended that a standing order be placed for all publications of Sixty-Eight Publishers (Toronto), an important émigré press. The Russian/Soviet specialist reviewed Soviet and Russian émigré subscriptions in order to improve the selection and to recommend airmail subscriptions to journals that have become interesting and in heavy demand since "glasnost." The French/Italian specialist systematically reviewed the Library's holdings of multi-volume French, Italian, Swiss, and Belgian reference sets and key periodicals and recommended filling gaps.

This year was marked by recommendations for acquisition of large collections on microform, for example, the Soviet Biographic Archive (1954-1985), Dutch Underground Publications (1940-1945), the catalog of the Netherlands Economic History Records Association, and the BIPA (Banque d'information politique et d'actualite) in microfiche. Also recommended was the printed book catalog of Baroque publications in the Library of the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbuttel, Germany.

III. ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF MATERIALS

The use of space in the European Reading Room and the adjacent Northwest Pavilion was approached from two vantage points–allotment of shelf space to the various languages and countries represented in the reading room, and preparation for increased use of the room while the Main Reading Room is closed for renovation. To make room for additional West European materials and for reader convenience, several heavily used resources were moved into the Pavilion–the multi-volume Current Digest of the Soviet Press and the Slavonic catalog of the New York Public Library, as well as the Cyrillic and Slavic Cyrillic Union Catalogs. In addition, several East European collections were shelf-read and pruned. Librarian Harris prepared a shelf-allotment plan based on population and publication statistics for the areas covered by the Reading Room. The Acting Chief has accepted this plan as appropriate and it will go into effect early in the next fiscal year. In anticipation of increased use of the room during the renovation of the Main Reading Room, the reader tables were rearranged to gain eight seats, and details of the Division's role in accommodating some of the readers who would ordinarily use the Main Reading Room were discussed with the chiefs of the General Reading Rooms and Collection Management Divisions.

Despite rapid and disruptive changes in personnel on the current materials deck (See Section VIII), shelving, service, and the preparation of materials for filming or binding did not suffer greatly, owing to the special efforts of the new staff and to the availability of overtime. Twenty-one thousand items were sent for binding. In addition, the Deck staff finished the revision and updating of the Division's serial record, and Processing Assistant Kantorosinski prepared an itemized list of the uncataloged Polish samizdat materials in the Division's custody.

A display, prepared by Specialist Krewson, was shown in the European Reading Room to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the founding of the city of Berlin.

IV. REFERENCE SERVICES

Some changes and trends could be noted in the readership of the Division during this fiscal year, although the absolute number of readers remained about the same as last year. There was an increase in information requests for Western Europe, reflecting improved collections in the European Reading Room and better knowledge of the Division's West European services. Among the readers interested in Eastern and Central Europe, there were more graduate students and researchers from "think tanks" such as the Wilson Center, Kennan Institute, Delphic, Center for Naval Analyses, and Stanford Research Institute. The Gorbachev phenomenon, phrases such as "glasnost'," "perestroika," and "demokratizatsiia," as well as Pope John Paul's visit to the United States generated a large number of requests for information. Topics of interest covered the whole geographic range and subject scope of the Division's activity, and were quite evenly divided between questions of a historical nature and current events.

The Division's reference services were employed by other units of the Library as well as by Congress and the public. Specialist Kovtun reviewed the text of the FRD manuscript Czechoslovakia: A Country Study, and specialist Hoskins reviewed a CRS paper on Polish-American relations. Specialist Krewson translated the Library's pamphlet Services to the Nation into German for the Information Office. The Polish specialist and the Acting Chief briefed Senator Edward Kennedy and members of his staff preceding the senator's trip to Poland. The Acting Chief and Specialist Leich participated in the briefing of a group of Congressional wives who were to visit the USSR as part of a "Peace Links" delegation. Additionally, the Division staff made 155 translations for Congress, mostly from or into Polish or Russian.

Visitors to the Division included many notables, for example, the national librarian of Hungary, Gyula Juhász, Soviet ambassador Yuriy A. Dubinin, West German ambassador Günther van Well, Greek ambassador George Papoulias, Swiss ambassador Klaus Jacobi, French Minister for Relations with Parliament, André Rossinot, Deputy Director of the Czech National Library Jan Nešický, Foreign Minister of Greece Karolos Papoulias, Director of the Bolshoi Ballet company Andrei Petrov, members of the West German parliament Werner Broll and Werner Weiss, as well as numerous editors and publishers and representatives of the diplomatic, government, and academic communities, including Chinese and Japanese specialists on Eastern Europe. This year was typified by visiting delegations, including a Soviet delegation, headed by Viktor Afanasev, editor of Pravda, who was equally impressed by the Prokudin-Gorskii exhibit and the fact that the Library's automated data bases showed the Library to have 60 books by him. Other visitor groups included wives of honorary consuls of Finland in the U.S., a group of Soviet humorists, graduate students from the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins Center for Advanced International Studies, teachers of English from the USSR and from Finland, and a delegation of Soviet Baptists. IREX scholars about to go on study tours to the Soviet Union visited the European Reading Room following a talk by the Acting Chief to this group at Georgetown University on the resources of the Reading Room and the Library for their research.

The Division's international visitors included the Dutch poets Leo Vroman, Gerrit Kouwenaar, and Jan Kuiper who read from their latest works for the Library's Archive of World Literature on Tape. On separate occasions the Acting Chief was interviewed by the Voice of America concerning the Library's Albanian and Bulgarian collections.

The Division's reference activities were greatly abetted by the acquisition of three Northern Telecom terminals. Librarian Harris, who is the Division's acting Automation Liaison, designed the layout changes necessary to accommodate these terminals and other automation equipment (see Section V) and trained Division personnel in their use. He also prepared a list, with descriptions, of automated data bases for East and West European studies. In connection with his liaison activities, Mr. Harris, while on a private visit to France, attended a demonstration of the online system used by the Bibliothèque National and the Minitel system in Paris and he attended a training session in Washington on the French Questel Plus data base. Mr. Harris' interests in and experience with French automation projects complement those of the French/Italian specialist, who has proposed that the Library arrange access to French data bases.

V. BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Three Division publications appeared in print this fiscal year: Berlin 750 Years: A Selective Bibliography (62p.) The Economies of the German-Speaking Countries of Europe. A Selective Bibliography (98p.), and Von Steuben and the German Contribution to the American Revolution. A Selective Bibliography (44p.), all by Margrit B. Krewson. Completed and in press are Czech and Slovak Literature in English, second edition, and Masaryk and America. Testimony of a Relationship, both by George J. Kovtun, Polish Genealogy and Heraldry, by Janina W. Hoskins, and Forty Commissars in Chicago. Imperial Russia Looks at America, by Robert V. Allen. In preparation are Library of Congress Resources on the Polish Visual Arts, by Janina W. Hoskins, and Contemporary Authors of the German-Speaking Countries of Europe. A Selective Bibliography, by Margrit B. Krewson. Janina W. Hoskins' Lafayette in America. A Selective List of Reading Materials in English and Margrit B. Krewson's The Netherlands, a Selective Bibliography of Reference Works were reprinted.

French/Italian specialist Armbruster updated and expanded her series of guides to reference resources and their location in the Library of Congress. This series, which is popular with readers and librarians, now includes Resources for Classical Studies in the European Reading Room, French Archives, French Biography (francophone Europe and Canada), French Business Sources, French Dissertations, French Military History, French Newspapers, French Periodicals, Italian General Directories, Italian Education Directories, Book Review Sources for Italian Fiction, Italian Folklife/Folklore, Italian Genealogy, Italian Newspapers, Italian Periodicals, Literature on Italian-Americans, and Italian Business Sources.

The American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies for 1985 was completed (see Section I) and sent to the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), the bibliography's sponsor, for publication. Compilation of the 1986 volume reached the one-third mark by the end of the fiscal year. The National Council for Soviet and East European Studies made funds available through the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies to hire a graduate student to assist with the American Bibliography project. This was part of a broader experiment on the part of the National Council to give graduate students experience in on-going projects supported in part by the National Council. This proved extremely valuable to the American Bibliography project and kept the work going on the 1986 volume, while the complex work of perfecting the newly automated procedures was underway (see Section I). Citations for the 1987 volume of the bibliography are being assembled simultaneously with those for the 1986 volume.

Staff members contributed 11 articles to the Library of Congress Information Bulletin. Division staff also published outside the Library. Harold Leich's article "The Society for Librarianship and Russian Libraries in the Early Twentieth Century" appeared in the Journal of Library History (vol. 20, no. 1, 1987) and George J. Kovtun's Masarykův triumf (Masaryk's Triumph) was published by Sixty-Eight Publishers in Toronto.

The Division acquired a COMPAQ microcomputer and a Hewlett-Packard laser jet printer, as well as the software packages Word Perfect 4.2, Pro-Cite, and TeX in support of its publishing program. Several staff members have been trained in the use of these hardware and software units by Automation Liaison Harris.

VI. SPECIAL EVENTS

French/Italian specialist Armbruster, in recognition of her efforts to promote Italian studies in the United States, was invited by the Italian government to participate in a three-day conference, held in Rome, on the Italian language and culture in the United States, with a subsequent tour of Italian cultural centers. The guests at this conference included United States and Italian educators and government officials.

Intensive planning for three events took place this year. The French/Italian specialist in cooperation with the Center for the Book drew commitments from four prominent scholars to give papers at the Library of Congress symposium on Eighteenth Century French Publishing to be held in 1989 to commemorate the French Revolution. The Russian/Soviet Specialist and the Acting Chief were named co-curators of a major exhibit to be displayed, beginning in May, 1988, in commemoration of the Millennium of Christianity among the Eastern Slavs. A symposium on Russian music and the graphic arts will be held at the Library in conjunction with the exhibit. Planning for both the exhibit and symposium has begun as has the selection of materials for the exhibit.

The Acting Chief participated in a series of meetings of Library of Congress curators to plan an exhibit of Americana among the holdings of the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library to be shown in the Soviet Union in 1990. If this project materializes, it will include an exchange of exhibits with Soviet libraries.

VII. ACTIVITIES IN PROFESSIONAL AND OFFICIAL ORGANIZATIONS

Division staff members hold office or are otherwise involved in organizations that enhance their professional skills or background. The Acting Chief is a member of the BIRD (Bibliography, Information Retrieval, and Documentation) Subcommittee of the Joint Committee on the Soviet Union of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Sciences Research Council. This subcommittee generates or reviews grant proposals in its area of specialization. He is also a permanent member of the Bibliography and Documentation Committee of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS). Specialist Leich is Chair of the AAASS Bibliography and Documentation Committee's Subcommittee on Bibliographic Control. Specialists Hoskins, Kovtun, and Librarian Harris are active members of the AAASS. Specialists Leich and Hoskins attended the Eighteenth Annual Convention of the AAASS in New Orleans.

Specialist Armbruster is active in the Association of College and Research Libraries' West European Specialist Section (WESS) of the American Library Association and is on the planning committee for the WESS symposium on acquisitions, to be held in Florence, Italy, in spring 1988. The Division's ALA activities included attendance at the national convention in San Francisco by specialists Armbruster and Leich. Participation in these and other organizations not only benefits the staff members, but makes the members of those organizations aware of the resources and services of the Division and the Library. Other professional affiliations of the staff include membership in the American Historical Association (Specialist Hoskins), the Modern Language Association (Specialist Armbruster), the Dictionary Society of North America (Librarian Harris), the Council for European Studies, the Sixteenth Century Studies Society, and the French Historical Society (Specialist Armbruster). Librarian Graham attended the Twelfth Military History Symposium at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the Symposium on Strategic Intelligence and National Security held at the Defense Intelligence College in Arlington, VA.

The Division specialists attended numerous work-related lectures and seminars in the Washington, D.C. area – at the Wilson Center, the Kennan Institute, the Goethe Society, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Czechoslovak Academy of Arts and Sciences, to name a few, and at the various embassies. The participation was not all one-way, Specialist Kovtun lectured in Czech at the Foreign Service Institute on Masaryk and America.

In Library of Congress Activities, Librarian Graham was eminently successful as Research Services Coordinator for the Combined Federal Campaign, substantially exceeding the Department's goal. Mr. Graham is also the Division's representative at the Reference Roundtable. Specialist Armbruster served on the committee to select memorial busts and quotations for the European, American, and Humanities colonnades in the renovated Jefferson Building. She spoke on "Italian Americans and the Role of the European Division" before the Library's Special Interest Group (SIG). The Acting Chief served on the Library's Binding Priorities Committee. Librarian Harris, in his capacity as the Division's Automation Liaison, works with the Department's Automation Office and other units of the Library, particularly in Research Services. This year Librarian Harris' pursuit of a Master of Arts degree at Catholic University included courses on "Information Retrieval Systems" and "Microcomputers in Information Systems Design."

Assistant Secretary Helen E. Saunders served as Division keyworker for the Combined Federal Campaign and for the Savings Bond Drive. Secretary Janie M. Ricks is a keyworker to assist Research Services staff members with personalized computer analyses and computer printouts of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS).

VIII. ADMINISTRATION, STAFF, AND FISCAL MATTERS

This fiscal year saw many changes in personnel. The salient event was filling the Russian/Soviet specialist position that had been vacant since August, 1985. Professor Harold M. Leich of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana was named to the position and joined the Division staff on April 6. Processing and Reference Assistant Mykola Kormeluk retired on October 31. His position was converted to that of Scandinavian specialist, completing the Division's West European commitment. The Scandinavian specialist was posted and interviews held, but a satisfactory candidate was not found and the position was reposted. Selection will be made early in the next fiscal year. Of the Division's specialist positions, only the vacant Finno-Ugrian remains unposted, for budgetary reasons.

Processing Assistants Stephen Adams and Zbigniew Kantorosinski were appointed in October, 1986, to fill full-time positions left vacant the previous fiscal year, and Christopher Cripps was employed in May, 1987 to fill the vacant part-time Processing Assistant position. Searcher Pamela Posey, who had just been promoted to the newly established GS-9 Automated Bibliographic Resources Librarian position, resigned on October 31, 1986. This position was posted, but no satisfactory candidate was found and the position was blocked to allow rewriting it in a GS-9/11/12 ladder. The savings were used to hire a temporary Searcher for Western Europe. Ms. Anne Hope, who has been a student volunteer, was chosen for the temporary searcher position.

On May 5, 1987, Bibliographic Assistant Stephen Paczolt accepted a position in another division. His position was posted and the successful candidate was Zbigniew Kantorosinski, Processing Assistant in the European Division. The vacant Processing Assistant position was posted and in the interim Christopher Cripps was raised to full-time Processing Assistant. On September 25, 1987, Mr. Cripps resigned to take a position in another agency. His position, too, was posted. As of the close of the fiscal year, the candidate for full-time Processing Assistant position had been selected, but not yet reported for duty. Interviews have been held for the part-time Processing Assistant position but an appointment will have to wait until the next fiscal year. On the brighter side and amid this seeming chaos of comings and goings of the staff, Librarian Harris was promoted to the GS-12 position, and Processing Assistants Adams and Kantorosinski were promoted to the GS-6 positions.

The Division was fortunate to receive assistance from the Federal Research Division, which detailed Mrs. Susan Larson and Ms. Simone Cummings to the European Division: Mrs. Larson on a 120-day detail and Ms. Cummings, a work study student, for an indefinite time, pending her clearance. Mrs. Larson was assigned to the to the American Bibliography project, for which she has excellent language and area-studies background. Ms. Cummings is also working on the American Bibliography project. The Division's work study student Linda Gray resigned on June 30 and was replaced by Ms. Tracey Pratt.

In October 1986 Janina W. Hoskins, Polish and East European Specialist, was among those honored by the Library for devoting more than 36 years of government service. Albert E. Graham, Head, European Reading Room, was on military leave form June 26 to July 12 and from August 17 to August 28, 1987, during which time he attended work-related symposia at the Air Force Academy and the Defense Intelligence College (see Section VII). Mrs. Helen E. Saunders, Assistant Division Secretary, served on jury duty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from February 25 to March 17, 1987.

This year the Division had several student volunteers. Ms. Anne Hope, Brigham Young University, worked under the supervision of Specialist Armbruster on the French political science resources in the Library. Ms. Ann Byrnes, Georgetown University, worked under the direction of Specialist Krewson on Germans in the American Revolution, and Mr. Christopher Hammonay, Princeton University, worked under the supervision of the Acting Chief on the role of art in the philosophy of György Lukács.