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

Current Activities

In January of 1997, an Agreement of Cooperation was signed by NYPL President Dr.Paul LeClerc, and Dr. Vladimir N. Zaitsev, Director of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg.  This wide-ranging protocol has led to a formalized exchange of specialists from the respective institutions, and a further streamlining of long-standing exchange relations.  In addition, staff responsible for exhibitions will meet in early 1999 to plan a traveling exhibit based on NYPL and Russian National Library collections.

In addition to the acquisition of current monographs and serials, the Division regularly obtains antiquarian items via purchase and gift. In the past year alone, these have included imperial charters, military decorations, autograph albums, original art works, archival and visual materials. Among the important collections obtained in recent years are:

• The Jacques Hnizdovsky Collection, including extensive examples of the book art and graphic design of the Ukrainian-American artist.
  
• The Dimitry and Eugenie Lehovich Collection, containing extensive documentation relating to the Russian emigration, the White Army, and the history of pre-Revolutionary Russia, as well as literary correspondence with Edmund Wilson.
  
• The Glaser Collection, containing many rare Russian art books, and original graphics acquired by Ida Isaakovna Glaser.
  
• The Shelehoff Collection, which includes a large number of rare émigré and Imperial-era imprints and photographs.
  
• In April of 1998, the remainder (approximately 3,000 volumes) of the private library of the greatest American collector of Slavica, Paul M. Fekula (1905-1982) was donated by his nephew, Walter P. Fekula.  The quality of the materials made this the most significant single gift in the Division's history--and possibly in the history of any other Slavic studies collection in the United States.  The collection is rich in South Slavic, and East Slavic printed books--including a Church Slavic imprint from the Venice typography of Bozidar Vukovic, dated 1554--Russian imperial association copies, 18th century Russian legal materials, and scarce publications produced by Slavic émigré communities in the United States, Western Europe, and the Far East. It is particularly appropriate that this gift arrived at the Division during its Centennial.

However, the Library's service to the research community extends beyond the gathering of materials for onsite use. It is a leader in collection stewardship as well, working with various ethnic and fraternal organizations, individual collectors, and businesses to ensure the preservation and enhanced accessibility to private book and archival collections in the New York Metro area.

Resource development activities to support these and other vital activities is an integral part of the Division's work. The Library seeks endowments for each of the fifteen languages for which it has responsibility--funding in support of curatorship, acquisitions, and preservation. Donors are honored in a special portrait gallery in the Division's Reading and Reference Room, and their names are inscribed with those of other donors at various public locations throughout the building.

Outreach activities are many and varied, including the publication of articles on specific collections, catalogs, checklists, participation in regional, national, and international forums, and on-line cataloging. The Library is also an active participant in the East Coast Consortium of Slavic Library Collections, which was established in 1993 to better coordinate activities among major Eurasian area studies collections in the Eastern United States. The Consortium presently numbers six member institutions: Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, The New York Public Library, Princeton, and Yale.

These varied outreach activities have as their common goal the advertisement of Library resources to the institution's diverse client communities. Recent publications include Church Slavic, Glagolitic, and Petrine Civil Script Books in The New York Public Library: A Preliminary Catalog (Marina del Rey and New York: Charles Schlacks Jr., Publisher, and The Library, 1996); and Russian & Ukrainian Avant-Garde and Constructivist Books and Serials in The New York Public Library: A First Census & Listing of Artists Represented (New York: Norman Ross Publishing, Inc., and The Library, 1998).

Among the current works-in-progress are Russian Imperial, Grand Ducal, & Palace Association Copies in the Holdings of The New York Public Library: A First Attempt at a Checklist. (New York: Norman Ross Publishing, Inc., and The Library, 1998); Russian Language Periodicals from the Age of Peter the Great to the Second World War (1703-1940): The Holdings of The NYPL (1999); and catalogues of rare Polonica; pre-1860 Slavic and Baltica; and printed Russian works on paper (book jacket design, posters, lubki, etc.) in the Research Libraries.

The Library Shop (212-930-0641) works with designers to develop and market numerous products based on the holdings of the Library. In the case of the Slavic and Baltic Division, this has included publications, graphics, jewelry, and religious art.