RUSSIAN LIBRARIES: A USER'S GUIDE

This guide is based upon personal experience in several libraries,
but primarily at the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg.
Hence, your experience may vary somewhat.

I. Cloak Room

  1. Leave everything there including your jacket, books, iPOD/mp3 player, etc.
  2. Be sure that there is a hook on your jacket, if you want to keep the attendants (garderobchitsi) happy
  3. Get your claim tag before you leave the counter
  4. Present claim tag when leaving library at the end of the day
  5. No tipping allowed please


II. Registration Procedure

Complete the registration form (first visit only) which usually asks:

  1. 1) Last name, 2) first name, 3) place of birth, 4) work status, 5) where you study, 6) education, 7) major, 8) work place, 9) work in library, 10) home address, 11) telephone and home telephone, and 12) passport number
  2. Provide two passport/visa size photos
  3. Pay a modest fee in rubles (often less than $5.00)
  4. The library card is issued for a limited period of time (usually only for your stated visa dates).

III. Security Desk

  1. Pick up slip
  2. When finished in reading room, have slip stamped
  3. Return slip at security desk upon exit

IV. Catalog Use

  1. While online catalogs are becoming much more prevalent, often there is still a main card catalog (and sometimes several based on the year of the item's publication) as well as a special catalog in the various fund collections (so check out the current situation)
  2. Like U.S. catalogs, cards are generally alphabetical by author, title, etc.
  3. The Book Chamber produces catalog cards (about 3x5 inches), although you will see handwritten cards for those items which are not listed in the Knizhnaia letopis' (Chronicle of Books), the national bibliography of works published in Russia (its scope covers 80-95% of the domain)
  4. In the upper left-hand corner of the card, note that the items are retrieved by noting the classification system which is either UDC or BBK (Bibliotechno-bibliograficheskaya Klassifikasiya) in most libraries. The latter system is mandatory in many general and university libraries.
  5. Write the complete information for each requested item on a separate slip obtained at the service desk


VI.  Service Desk for Stacks

  1. Fill out a request slip for the item(s) you need
  2. Take to attendant who will retrieve the material
  3. Most libraries are closed stack and often books are shelved by an accession number

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1. The Lenin Library in Moscow published the BBK in thirty volumes between 1960 and 1968; there is a one-volume guide as well.  Books are grouped into one of its twenty-one main categories, which are represented by Cyrillic letters and include these categories: Marxism-Leninism followed by sciences, technology (further divided into eight categories), agriculture, medicine, social science (further divided into seven categories), literature, art, religion, philosophy, and generalia.

Revised: 3 February 2009