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Facilities and Activities of the Library of Congress in the Slavic and East European Field

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Jacob Ornstein*
Affiliation:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Graduate School, Washington, D. C.

Extract

The present article is intended to serve as an overview of the current holdings, facilities, and activities of the Library of Congress in the Slavic and East European area. It is offered in the hope that it will be of assistance to scholars specializing in this region, particularly those who have not had the opportunity of familiarizing themselves with the offerings of the Library at first hand. The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented expansion of Slavic and East European activities at the Library of Congress, culminating in the broad and varied program described in the following lines.

A description of the holdings of the Library in the area considered here is difficult and can only be attempted in the most general terms. It may, however, be affirmed that the Slavic collection, with over 300,000 volumes, represents the largest single collection of the Library of Congress, followed by the Chinese with more than 240,000 volumes, and the Hispanic collection with over 100,000 volumes. It is at the same time believed to be the largest collection of Russian books anywhere in the world outside the Soviet Union itself.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1953

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References

1 Several long studies were prepared in the Foreign Law Section and have been published. Vladimir Gsovski's Russian Administration of Alaska and the Status of the Alaskan Natives (1950), was issued as Senate Document No. 152, 81st Congress, 2nd Session. His Soviet Civil Law was published by the University of Michigan Press in two volumes, appearing in 1948 and 1949, respectively. An article by him entitled, Elements of Soviet Labor Law, originally appearing in the April, 1951, Labor Monthly, was also reprinted as Bulletin No. 1,026 of the Department of Labor. This study appeared also in Chinese in the Democratic Review, Nos. 5 and 6 (Hong Kong, 1952) and in French in the journal, Problèmes Économiques, August, 1951 (Paris).

2 The members of the Mid-European Law Project have selected as their major targets a series of broad studies intended ultimately for publication. One of the first of these to be printed was Economic Treaties and Agreements of the Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe, 1945–1951), appearing in 1952. The study, Forced Labor and Confinement without Trial (1952), in the form of a separate pamphlet for each East European country, was recently utilized by the National Committee for a Free Europe in a hearing before a subcommittee of the Social and Economic Council of the United Nations. In addition, the monographs, Church Behind the Iron Curtain and Nationality Laws and the Status of Aliens, are at present in press.