Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections & Reading Rooms > Slavic and Baltic Division > Collection Development

Background

During most of the past eight decades, collections of Slavic, Baltic, East European, and Eurasian materials in the West were viewed as safe havens of the printed and archival legacy of these peoples. Our great library and archival collections served as neutral ground for researchers studying topics and individuals who were proscribed in the homelands. With the destruction wrought by the Second World War, we became not only points to access these materials, but, in many cases, their only source.

While our function as a refuge for endangered collections remains vital--witness the horrific events in the former Yugoslavia, library thefts in Russia, or the destruction of library and archival collections in the Caucasian states--the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc has prompted a fundamental reevaluation of where our limited reservoir of time and energy should be focused.

The question here is, what collection-building activities should we be engaged in beyond satisfying the legitimate needs of our steady users, especially given the following factors: 1) the heightened volume of material coming from these countries, particularly from those countries emerging from the shadow of the Soviet Union; 2) the dramatically (and erratically) increased expense of these materials; 3) the multiplicity of vendors with which one must do business in a decentralized post-communist environment; 4) the exponential growth in electronic resources of uneven substantive value, some free, some prohibitively expensive; and 5) the largely unfettered access of at least a portion of our traditional constituencies to obviously superior printed book and archival resources in the homelands, diminishing our long-standing function as a source for book materials to which access in the homelands was limited. (On these issues, see Edward Kasinec, "Zastroika, Perestroika, Rasstroika, Dostroika and Us," The Serials Librarian, 21(2/3): 59-67).

In this environment, the Slavic and Baltic Division has reexamined its role vis-à-vis its diverse constituencies, which has in turn exerted an influence on the Division's collection development priorities.

Certain of the NYPL's already internationally-distinguished collections in the Slavic, Baltic, and East European field have been singled out for further, intensive, development:

• Rare and precious imprints and non-print materials, including photographs;
• Reference materials, including genealogical works, the history of Slavic and East European studies, book studies, and enumerative bibliography;
• Art, architecture, archaeology, and illustrated books;
• Émigré materials (integrated throughout classmarks), and Russian periodicals.

and have in the recent past received considerable financial support for their maintenance, cataloging, and enhancement. However, other collections have become purposefully less comprehensive than in the past. The reason is rooted in the changes taking place in the homelands themselves. For example, while previously, Russian social science titles, regardless of objective quality, was collected in the hope that somewhere, between the lines, researchers might catch a glimpse, however fleeting or oblique, of an objective bit of Kremlinological information that might be of value. These now have "historiographical" significance. Today, the lifting of censorship and ideological constraints has permitted us to be far more selective, without the fear of inadvertently hindering researchers. On the other hand, current and retrospective materials that are unlikely to be duplicated in the libraries and archives of the homelands--émigré imprints, the archives of Metropolitan New York fraternal and other ethnic organizations, or the personal libraries of prominent figures of the emigrations--are being actively pursued and acquired as comprehensively as possible.

The central role of the Division today is emerging, to an increasing degree, as that of a "broker" of, or access point to, information concerning the book and archival holdings of myriad public and private institutions and individuals. More specifically:

• It is a disseminator of information on collections in the New York Metro region--those of academic and ethnic organizations, as well as private individuals. For example, the Division took a leading role in formulating, and preparing Robert A. Karlowich's A Guide to Scholarly Resources on the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in the New York Metropolitan Area (Armonk, N.Y..M.E. Sharpe, 1990), and its companion volume, A Guide to Scholarly Resources on Eastern Europe in the New York Metropolitan Area (typescript, available at the Division) by Columbia University's Robert Scott. Centrally located in a major world capital, a point of entry for countless visitors from Eastern and Western Europe, and American's preeminent (and unquestionably most diverse) cultural and commercial center, this public-service Division is uniquely well-suited to serve a steady stream of students, senior scholars, designers, writers, and business people in all conceivable areas, many of whom have only a vague inkling of the wealth of resources relevant to their interests. It is also a disseminator of information on area studies holdings found not just in the Slavic and Baltic Division, but in the NYPL's many other units as well, developing a close working relationship with other curators;
• A resource for information on Western collections of Slavic and East European materials, again through a systematic effort to obtain works listing or describing these collections;
• A resource for access to collections in the homelands, aided by our rich holdings of small-tirazh checklists and guides--most especially those for little-known collections of Orientalia, Hebraica, Islamica, etc. held in Eastern European libraries, archives, and museums.

In addition to this role as broker, the Division has become an active solicitor of book and archival materials now held by institutions and individuals nearing the close of their lives. The generations of Slavic, Baltic, and East European émigrés of the first half of this century are swiftly passing from the scene, leaving the fates of their often irreplaceable collections in doubt, or to the vagaries of uninterested executors for whom such materials are a burden to be disposed of in the most expedient manner possible.