Annual Report of the Chief, Mr. N. R. Rodionoff, for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1943
Note. This Report comprises twenty-nine pages, including Table of Contents [not included here] and three statistical appendices. 1
The introductory statement about the Slavic Division which appears on p. 214–215 of the "Annual Report of The Librarian of Congress," 1940, can also serve its purpose in an annual report for the fiscal year 1942–1943.
Moreover, it can be well supplemented by "History and Objectives of the Slavic Division," as set forth on pages 1–10 of my typewritten "Manual of the Slavic Division," in its first, unabridged, version, submitted by me to the Chief Assistant Librarian July 18, 1942, rejected by him (Cf. his Memo. to me, dated September 22, 1942), but not returned to me.
It is obvious that readers of my annual reports should consult the said manual first.
During the fiscal year 1942–1943 the Slavic Division had available about 7,055 man-hours, including Sunday and Holiday Service, but excluding the leaves taken by the members of its staff.
Of this total, 5,284 man-hours, or about 75 percent were spent on services, including extra- and intramural correspondence, and the rest, or 1,771 man-hours, or about 25 percent, were spent on processing operations, including the preparation of materials for binding (which is erroneously entered under services in the Library's official form for the monthly statistical reports of its divisions).
As compared with the corresponding data for the fiscal year 1941–1942, the number of various pieces of printed materials (books, periodicals, pamphlets, newspapers) used by the readers on the premises of the Division and of the Library at large had increased from 31,053 to 35,954, or about 15.8 percent, and the number of the readers — from 2,945 to 3,310, or about 12.5 percent.
The number of pieces (mostly books and periodicals) lent by the Division out of the Library buildings on inter-library and personal loans had decreased from 1,684 items lent during the fiscal year 1941–1942 to 1,566 items lent during the fiscal year 1942–1943, or by 7.5 percent.
As during the preceding year, the reference service of the Slavic Division rendered during the fiscal year 1942–1943 consisted mostly of its bibliographical assistance to other units of the Library of Congress, to other American libraries and to other governmental agencies.
As usual, there was a great variety of the fields and subjects in which the seekers of our reference service showed their interests. Moreover, the majority of them did not specify particular publications in their inquiries, but asked for bibliographical information on certain topics and expected of the Slavic Division not to limit its assistance to its holdings and those of the Library of Congress at large, nor to the publications in the Slavic languages only.
However, the demand for both categories of our reference service, i.e. (a) the checking and locating of specified publications, and (b) the giving of bibliographical advice, considerably increased during the fiscal year 1942–43, in comparison with the demand for the same service made during the preceding year. The increase manifests itself from the following figures:
The Slavic Division extended every feasible assistance to the Main Reading Room and the Division of Union Catalog in locating the Slavic materials in the Library, which was requested either for inter-library loans, or for photoduplication. On the materials which the Library of Congress does not have the Division furnished the data, whenever available, from the Union Lists and the Union Catalog of Some of the Slavic holdings in Some American libraries, as to in what other American libraries the materials requested could be found.
The assistance of the Slavic Division to other governmental agencies, especially to various war offices and units, continued to be its most important function during the fiscal year 1942–1943, as it had been during the preceding year. It was the most important function by the relative amount of man-hours spent on it, as well as by its value for the war efforts of the United States (Cf. The acknowledgements cited below, on page 8 of this report).
There was a considerable change, however, in the nature of our assistance. As virtually all the materials of the Slavic Division bearing on numerous researches undertaken by various war agencies have long been borrowed and kept by them ever since, we usually referred the inquirers to the said borrowed materials and to the sources housed in other divisions of the Library, as well as in other American libraries. In other words, although the Slavic Division was no longer able to produce the references suitable to the purpose of various inquirers, it advised them as to where such references could be located. For the last two fiscal years no new material having any strategic value has reached the Slavic Division and deep secrecy governs the distribution of such material in the Library.
It should be noted, however, that the Office of Strategic Services, which keeps a considerable stock of Russian materials borrowed long ago from the Slavic Division, usually returned those publications to the Division which were requested by other governmental agencies and reborrowed them again after their return by the said agencies to the Slavic Division.
Still, I presume, the cases of direct borrowing of our books from one agency by another are numerous and such cases really menace the safety of the books, The fight against this evil is, of course, beyond the authority and the means of the Slavic Division.
All the services of the Slavic Division rendered to other units of the Library of Congress, to other American libraries and to other governmental agencies are outright, unreciprocated services and were usually acknowledged as such by those persons to whom they had been rendered.
Besides numerous oral acknowledgment of its services, the Slavic Division received the two following acknowledgments by letters during the year:
(1) Letter from Dr. Paul S. Galtsoff, In Charge, Shellfishery Investigations, College Park, Md., to The Librarian of Congress, dated February 8, 1943, received by me in carbon copy. Dr. Galtsoff wrote as follows:
Dear Dr. MacLeish:
The purpose of this letter is to acknowledge with thanks the splendid cooperation rendered by the staff of the Slavic Division in assisting the undersigned in the preparation of a report on certain problems in the North Pacific requested by our Naval forces in Honolulu.
Only with the assistance of your staff and because of their excellent familiarity with the Slavic collection and with the books located in other divisions of the Library, was it possible to prepare this urgent report in a very short time.
I am especially grateful to Messrs. N. R. Rodionov, in Charge of the Slavic Division, John Dorosh and V. L. Joukovsky, who called my attention to a number of publications not known to me and without fail were able to find references scattered in Governmental reports and obscure publications which I requested.
Very truly yours,
Paul S. Galtsoff
In Charge, Shellfishery Investigations
(2) Letter from Julian P. Leggett, Major, Air Corps, Assistant, Technical Data Section, Maintenance Division, Patterson Field, Fairfield, Ohio, dated March 24, 1943, to Mr. Rodionoff, Chief, Slavic Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Major Leggett wrote, in part, as follows:
Dear Mr. Rodionoff,
. . . . We wish to express our appreciation for your considerable efforts in contacting Mrs. Kipp with various sources of information both in the Library of Congress and in outside agencies. We hope soon to resume the program outlined.
We also thank you for emphasizing the importance of microfilm facilities in securing copies of recent foreign data not available in other form. We find that microfilm readers of the Eastman Rekordak type are available to us and are today ordering microfilm copies of a number of the publications viewed in the Slavic Division (see attached list).
Please extend our thanks to Mr. Dorosh and Mr. Zhukovsky for their kind assistance.
Very truly yours," etc.
About 575 reference inquiries were answered by the Slavic Division during the year by correspondence, as against 560 inquiries answered during the preceding year. The great majority of them, or 526 inquiries, were letters referred from other divisions. In these cases the Slavic Division furnishes either the materials requested (for inter-library loans, for photoduplication, etc.), or the information as to where the said materials might and could be located in other divisions of the Library of Congress, or in other American libraries.
The forty-nine formal replies were made out by the Slavic Division to various letters received either direct, or through the Reference Department. All the replies were sent through the Reference Department. During the preceding year the Division made and sent out forty-eight replies.
The compilation of bibliographies, i.e. a mere listing of the sources on a chosen subject, is not included in the Classification Sheets of the members of the staff of the Slavic Division. The bibliographical research, however, i.e. a quest for references suitable to the purposes of certain investigations and the critical evaluation of them, is listed in my Classification Sheet and I performed this function almost every day during the thirteen years of my service as the Chief of the Slavic Division. This function has to be performed mostly orally because a written bibliographical advice, in the absence of a typist on the Division's staff, costs, in man-hours, approximately ten times more than the same advice given orally.
It is obvious, however, that even when a good typist is available a written advice costs much more than the same advice given orally.
Moreover, the war time conditions and their effects on the work of the Slavic Division urgently call for a drastic curtailment of its paper work.
Nevertheless, my paper work, consisting of formal typed replies to correspondents and of memoranda, reports, notes, etc., addressed to other divisions of the Library, consumed during the year about fifteen percent of my official time, including the time required for the preliminary research which all the outgoing papers usually called for. Besides, my assistants spent on the same work about four percent of their official time.
Under the heading of "Memoranda" there are entered in my statistics the intramural papers only.
The statistics of the intramural papers made out by the Slavic Division during the fiscal years 1941–1942 and 1942–1943, namely, 244 and 483, respectively, are hardly comparable because while the first figure contains but 155 daily and Sunday attendance reports (the daily reports were introduced March 3, 1942), the second figure contains 365 daily and Sunday attendance reports. In other words, during the fiscal year 1942–1943 the Division was called for making out 210 more attendance reports than it made out in the fiscal year 1941–1942. Moreover, while each figure includes 12 monthly statistical reports, the said reports for the fiscal year 1942–1943 were more complicated and consumed much more time than the corresponding reports made out in 1941–1942 because of the computation of man-hours required since July, 1942.
The following papers made out by me during the year may be mentioned either for the time they consumed, or for the importance of the matters they referred to:
[Several paragraphs have been excised from this part of the report. Ed.]
Although the Slavic Division is a reference library unit, it would lack one of some important prerequisites for a satisfactory reference service — the proper care and arrangement of its collections and catalogs — if it were not for the constant and persistent technical processing, however simplified and elementary, of its holdings by its staff. For, the Processing Department of the Library has never had a sufficient staff to process the materials kept in the Slavic Division.
The staff of the Slavic Division is, and has always been, very inadequate for keeping its collections and catalogs in a library-like, and for doing away with their store-like, condition. The lack of the force for the proper filing of its catalog cards and the proper shelving of its collections is the most startling deficiency in its organization and the heaviest draw-back to its reference service. Approximately 25,000 pieces of printed materials constitute the Division's steady arrears in the proper shelving and about 6,000 cards — in the proper filing. Our experience shows that we can run quite a large library without catalogs, provided that the proper shelving be constantly attended to.
The progress made by the Slavic Division during the fiscal year 1942–1943 in the development of its Apparatus is shown in APPENDIX II: "Statistical Summaries of the Processing Operations Performed in the Slavic Division during the fiscal years 1941–1942 and 1942–1943 1)." It reveals that the three of the four catalogs maintained by the Slavic Division were considerably enlarged during the year, although for the two of them the Division received far less entries from the Processing Department and the Division of Union Catalogs than during the preceding year, 1941–1942, viz.:
(a) the General Catalog of printed card author, title and subject entries, representing but a small portion of Slavic holdings of the Library at large, increased by 4,261 entries, as against the corresponding increase by 7,550 entries delivered and distributed during the preceding year (the entries for this catalog are produced and supplied by the Processing Department of the Library; 3
(b) the Special Manuscript Catalog of temporary author, or title, card entries, mostly for monographic (non-serial) publications, increased by 2,598 entries, as against the corresponding increase by 2,315 entries, which was effected during the preceding year; the entries for this catalog have always been made out by the members of the staff of the Slavic Division;
(c) the Special Manuscript Catalog of temporary title, or issuing body, card entries for periodicals and serials, housed in the Slavic Division, increased by about 200 new entries during the year for some odd issues of old and out of print publications received through the Inter-Library Exchange. During the fiscal year 1941–1942 the Division completed the temporary cataloging of its periodicals and serials (hitherto either uncataloged, or insufficiently cataloged) by making out about 2,000 entries for this catalog and for the second edition of the Union List of Serials. During the fiscal year 1942–1943 the Processing Department, unfortunately, dumped on the premises of the Slavic Division several hundred issues of periodicals and serials which proved deteriorating duplicates of our good copies of the same issues acquired before. It is regrettable that the Slavic Division has no control over the influx of unwanted materials and its premises are regarded by the Processing Department as dumping grounds for useless materials which, if undisposed, will remain a heavy burden on the Division, because they take considerable shelving space and occasional labor required for their orderly arrangement.
The new, revised and enlarged, edition of the Union List of Serials was recently published by The H. W. Wilson Co. It contains about 5,500 entries for the holdings of the Slavic Division, with the basic bibliographical data on them and the records for 74,000 issues of periodicals and serials. The work done in the Slavic Division for this edition of the Union List and the proper appraisal of the said work were given by me in my Annual Reports for the fiscal years 1940–1941 and 1941–1942. Unfortunately, my account of the said work failed to reach the published Annual Reports of The Librarian of Congress for the same years. The entries made out by the Slavic Division in the new edition of the Union List are, of course, based on the entries which are extant in the Division's Special Manuscript Catalog of temporary entries for its periodicals and serials;
(d) the Union Catalog of Some of the Slavic publications in Some American libraries increased during the year by 3,952 entries, as against the corresponding increase by 7,206 entries, delivered and distributed during the preceding year (the entries for this catalog are supplied by the Division of Union Catalog); the entries in this catalog are author, or title, card entries — printed, typewritten, photostated and mimeographed — including numerous second copies which are supposed to be used for added entries, when and if the labor for making out the proper headings on them would be available.
The temporary cataloging by the Slavic Division of its monographic materials is always accompanied by the temporary classifying of the same materials, in accordance with the Library of Congress Classification System. Sometimes the classifying lags behind the cataloging, but arrearages in classifying are usually coped with later. As to its periodicals and serials, the Division has never had sufficient force to attend constantly to the classifying of them. Nevertheless, many of them have also been classified by the staff of the Division.
During the fiscal year 1942–1943 there were classified by and in the Division 3,476 titles, as against 2,095 titles classified during the preceding year; the comparison shows the increase in the classifying by about 66 percent.
Moreover, the Division attends to bookplating, labeling, perforating and marking with temporary call numbers of its materials. There was also a considerable progress in these operations during the fiscal year 1942–1943, viz.: 3,607 items were processed through them, as against 2,612 items processed in the same manner during the preceding year. The comparison shows the increase by about 38 percent.
The Slavic Division also attends to the preparation of its materials for binding. The stock of the materials which was sent by the Division to the Bindery during the fiscal year 1942–1943 amounted to 5,192 pieces, or items, which were to be bound in 2,362 volumes, mostly in full bindings. Up to July 1st, 1943, the Division received back from the Bindery but 863 bound volumes. The binding of the rest has been held up by the Director of Processing Department who, of course, has not cared to explain to me his reason for discontinuing one of the most important processing operations performed for the Slavic Division in his Department. It should be noted, for comparison, that during the fiscal year 1941–1942 the Slavic Division prepared and sent to the Bindery 3,830 items which were bound in 1,789 volumes and returned to the Division.
There remain to be mentioned but our two ultimate processing operations, namely, the shelving of our materials and the filing of our catalog cards.
The comparison of the annual figures for shelving operations performed in the Slavic Division during the last two years shows a drastic decrease of them from about 30,000 pieces shelved and reshelved during the fiscal year 1941–1942 to about 10,500 pieces shelved and reshelved during the fiscal year 1942–1943. This can easily be explained by considerable movements of periodicals and serials checked during the fiscal year 1941–1942 for the second edition of the Union List of Serials, mentioned above, and by some reshelving operations required during the same year after the removal of about 2,900 volumes for the emergency preservation.
In regard to the filing of catalog cards, the Slavic Division usually files all the new temporary entries in its two catalogs of temporary entries described above. Therefore, the figures for production and distribution of temporary entries in the Division are usually the same. They are the same for each of the two fiscal years now under our comparison, viz.: 2,315 temporary entries were made out and filed during the fiscal year 1941–1942 and 2,598 temporary entries were made out and filed during the fiscal year 1942–1943.
In its General Catalog of printed entries the Slavic Division some years files more cards than currently receives from the Processing Department. The additional quantities the Division takes from its arrearage of unfiled cards accumulated in the past because of the lack of man-hours for constant attending to its numerous functions. During the fiscal year 1941–1942 the Division received for the said catalog 2,086 cards, but succeeded in filing therein 3,234 cards. The corresponding figures for the fiscal year 1942–1943 were 3,835 and 4,261 cards, respectively.
For its Union Catalog the Division received 7,206 and 3,952 cards, during the fiscal years 1941–1942 and 1942–1943, respectively, and succeeded in filing all of them in the said catalog during the same years.
Concluding my report on the processing operations, I should state that a considerable progress attained by the Slavic Division in some routine operations (cataloging, classifying, etc.) during the fiscal year 1942–1943 had been rendered feasible by a regress in other routine operations (shelving books and filing cards) and by the absence of all the emergency work (Union List of Serials and Emergency Preservation Project) which took a great amount of the Division's man-hours during the fiscal year 1941–1942. (Cf. APPENDIX II).
During the fiscal year 1942–1943, as during the preceding year, the acquisition "policy," if any, was pursued for the Slavic Division by Dr. S. Yakobson, Consultant of the Library in Slavic History. He, I presume, will report on his endeavours in the developing the collections of the Slavic Division. It is hardly his fault, however, that his acquisition policy stumbles badly on the distribution policy, if any, of the Processing Department in regard to the Library's Slavic materials.
About seventeen hundred dollars ($1,700.00) were spent by the Library during the fiscal year 1941–1942 on the purchases of Slavic materials, presumably for the Slavic Division, but the total cost of about 450 items delivered to the Division from these purchases in the same year hardly exceeds four hundred dollars ($400.00). I do not know, what amount was spent on similar purchases during the fiscal year 1942–1943 (hardly less than fifteen hundred dollars, I presume), but I do know that the total cost of some 150 purchased items which were delivered to the Slavic Division from the Processing Department during the same year hardly exceeds one hundred and fifty dollars ($150.00). The accession dates on many of them show that they were purchased prior to July 1st, 1942. Moreover, the Processing Department sees to it that only insignificant publications, and mostly in the class of Russian Belles-Lettres, be sent to the Slavic Division, while all the other kinds and classes of Slavic publications be distributed elsewhere in the Library.
From the stocks of Slavic materials received through the International and Interlibrary Exchanges the Processing Department dumped on the premises of the Slavic Division, without my consent, not only mostly insignificant, but also badly deteriorated materials, and there were hundreds of items in bad condition which duplicate our good copies of the same publications.
[Several paragraphs have been excised from this part of the report. Ed.]
All the deliveries from the Processing Department to the Slavic Division have always been effected without accompanying lists and the materials have always been virtually dumped on the premises of the Division. My consent to the dumping has never been asked by the dumpers.
This dumping, performed at the discretion of the dumpers, has long become the Library's official and prevailing "method" of elemental, unplanned and uncontrolled "development" of the collections of the Slavic Division. Since 1940 it has become the only method of the said "development."
| APPENDIX I: Statistical Summaries of the Services Rendered by the Slavic Division during fiscal years: | 1941–1942 | 1942–1943 |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Readers served | 2,945 | 3,310 |
| 2. Items issued to the readers on the premises of the Division and the Library at-large | 31,053 | 35,954 |
| 3. Items lent out of the Library Buildings | 1,684 | 1,566 |
| 4. Reference inquiries received and answered by telephone | 2,544 | 4,387 |
| 5. Conferences with investigators | 848 | 1,346 |
| 6. Correspondence | ||
|
(a) reference inquiries received and cleared by letters |
48 | 49 |
|
(b) letters referred from other divisions for data or materials |
511 | 526 |
|
(c) administrative memoranda |
244 | 483 |
| 7. Translations (man-hours) | 120 | 56 |
| 8. Search and Research (man-hours) | ||
|
(a) in and for the materials suitable to the purposes of various investigators |
390 | 300 |
|
(b) for L. C. copies of the publications offered for purchase |
200 | 120 |
|
(c) for the publications requested for references |
100 | 80 |
| 9. Outright unreciprocated services to other units of L.C. (man-hours) | 107 | 40 |
| APPENDIX II: Statistical Summaries of the Processing Operations Performed in the Slavic Division by the Members of Its Staff during fiscal years: | 1941–1942 | 1942–1943 |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Simplified cataloging — titles | 2,315 | 2,598 |
| 2. Temporary classifying — titles | 2,095 | 3,476 |
| 3. Bookplating, labeling, perforating and marking with call numbers-volume | 2,612 | 3,607 |
| 4. Shelving — items (including unbound issues of newspapers) | 30,000 | 10,501 |
| 5. Prepared for binding and sent to the Bindery | ||
|
items |
3,830 | 5,192 |
|
to be bound in volumes |
1,789 | 2,362 |
| 6. Cards filed into divisional | ||
|
(a) General Catalog of printed cards |
3,234 | 4,261 |
|
(b) Special Catalog of temporary manuscript entries for monographic materials |
2,315 | 2,598 |
|
(c) Special Catalog of temporary ms. entries for periodicals and serials |
Over 2,000* | 200 |
|
(d) Union Catalog of some Slavic holdings in some American libraries |
7,206 | 3,952 |
| 7. Union List of Serials | ||
|
(a) the entries made out for the Division |
Over 2,000* | |
|
(b) the same entries made out for the Editors, either by listing, or by inserting in Checking edition |
2,000* | |
|
((c) the checking of photostats of them |
2,000* | |
|
(d) the checking de visu of about |
7,000 issues | |
| 8. The Emergency Preservation Project:** | ||
|
the checking and packing - volumes |
2,900 |
| APPENDIX III: Gains and Losses of Individual Items in the Slavic Division during the Fiscal Years: | 1941–1942 | 1942–1943 |
|---|---|---|
| Balance on July 1st | 119,488 | 117,000 |
| Acquisitions (all via Processing Dt.) | ||
|
a) through Exchanges |
2,112 | 1,772 |
|
(b) through Purchases and gifts |
450 | 155 |
| Total of gains | 122,050 | 118,920 |
| Losses: | ||
|
(a) removed for Emergency |
2,900 | |
|
(b) congested in binding |
2,041 | 3,172 |
|
(c) transferred to other divisions |
119 | |
| Total of losses | 5,050 | 3,172 |
| Balance on July 1st, 1942 | 117,000 | |
| Balance on July 1st, 1943 | 115,748 |
