Lenin's library recording. Russian State Library

Lenin's library recording. Russian State Library
21.06.2019

34 have chosen

-I got a pass to the scientific rooms of the Lenin Library.
- What for?
- Can you imagine what a contingent! Academicians, doctors, philosophers.
- So what? Will you watch them read?
- You understand a lot! There is also a smoking-room "

Learned? "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", action time - 1958.

Modern girls, of course, are looking for promising suitors in other places. And in general, it has become somehow unfashionable to visit libraries ... But it is still worth entering this Library - even if not for knowledge, then at least for an excursion. I'm sure it will be interesting!

Muscovites don't need to explain "how to get to the library" - I think everyone knows these buildings on Mokhovaya and Vozdvizhenka, a stone's throw from the Kremlin. Getting inside is also not difficult - it is enough to be over 18 years old and have a passport with you. A small electronic queue, a few minutes to get a library card - and all the "Leninka" treasures are at your service ...

In fact, this cultural institution is no longer "Leninka" (State Library of the USSR named after V. I. Lenin), but the Russian State Library - since 1991. But for loyal and longtime readers (and even more so for old collaborators) it will still be "Lenin". Probably the same thing happened in the 1920s and 1930s, when "old-regime" readers continued to call it the library of the Rumyantsev Museum ...

Over the past 20 years, not only the name has changed. In our age of the Internet and e-books, libraries are generally not easy, but I want to believe that they will survive, albeit in a changed form. The old "paper" catalog has been replaced by an online catalog, more and more magazines, newspapers and books enter the Library in electronic form, and computerized reading rooms appear. The old generation of readers do not like "these newfangled things" that destroy the spirit of the Library. Young people, on the other hand, think that the Library is "living in the past." And the "outdated" librarians, in turn, complain that the "shredded" reader does not need serious literature ... Everyone is right in his own way ... It is difficult for the "Old Guard" to retrain, and the Library needs "fresh blood" so much! But who among the educated youth will be seduced by a very modest library salary?

"A house in which there are no books is like a body devoid of a soul" (Cicero). There are not only many books in this house - there are a lot of them. The collection of the RSL comprises more than 43 million "storage units" (as it is called in a library way). These are not only books, magazines and newspapers, but also geographic maps, sheet music, sound recordings, manuscripts, postcards, photographs, prints, posters ... This is the largest library in Russia and Europe and the second in the world - after the US Library of Congress. However, many Russian librarians will disagree with the "second place" and will argue that "the whole point is in different counting systems" of these very storage units. In Russia, magazines and newspapers are considered annual sets, and in the USA - each separate issue. I'm not sure that our patriots are right, but the fact remains - the Leninka fund is huge! And it will grow every year, since any book published in our country must be presented in the Library. True, in the post-Soviet years, the "legal deposit" system regularly fails - many publishers do not consider it necessary to comply with the law and provide their books. The Library also contains a huge collection of foreign books (by the way, in 247 languages!).

Her real pride is the unique collections of manuscripts and old books. It contains the manuscripts of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, autographs of Peter I, Suvorov, Lomonosov ... The list is endless. First printed Russian and unique European books, starting from the 15th century (including about 5 thousand incunabula - books published before 1500). And more than 400 books from the Library's funds exist in the world in a single copy. And they are kept with us ...

How do we start the tour? Let's go to the Book Museum. And we will take the children with us - there are special programs for them. During the excursion, you will be told about the history of the book - both printed and handwritten, you will be shown unique copies of books from different centuries, samples of bindings and illustrations. There are even display cases with bookmarks and antique page knives.

Unfortunately, the Museum has a very small space, and it displays its treasures in turn. But let's hope for the best - the project of the new building of the Library provides for a real large museum ...

We enter the new Library building. A sad sign of the times - a huge advertising inscription on the building of the book depository is visible from everywhere. The building with columns and sculptures is not so new - its construction began in the 30s. And in the fall of the terrible 1941, when the enemy was approaching Moscow, modest librarians carried almost the entire book fund from Pashkov's house to the concrete storage building in their hands (only the most valuable part of it was evacuated). And they were on duty on the roof of the Library, dropping incendiary bombs down. And the Library was working! In 1942, the Children's Reading Room was even opened.

Let's walk through the reading rooms (just be quiet!), Breathe in the smell of books and dust - so typical for all libraries ... Let us recall the words of Marietta Shaginyan, a faithful reader of Leninka: “I spent the best hours of my life under the green shade of her lamps, in her silence. reading room ... "And the lampshades of the table lamps are still green!

Let's go to the front marble staircase. On both sides of it is an old "paper" catalog intended for readers. It is still impossible to refuse it - the electronic version does not yet cover the entire array of books. Although, it seems to me that even then the "old school" librarians will not agree to get rid of it. And this is not a matter of distrust of technology, but of old library traditions. There is also a service directory - the holy of holies, readers are not allowed there. From old memory - in previous years, lazy readers pulled out cards from catalogs - so as not to rewrite information. And there is also a unique "Old Catalog" - a real museum exhibit - old catalog boxes with handwritten cards from the century before last ...

You will not be allowed in the book depository either. Not all employees are allowed there - you need to have a special stamp in the pass. Still would! Such values! And it's a pity - from the upper tiers of storage (tiers, not floors) a stunning view of the Kremlin opens ... Yes, and thousands of shelves with millions of books make an impression ... But you can't, you can't!

But you can and should enter the amazing department of the Russian Diaspora. It contains thousands of foreign books about Russia, and the special pride of the department is the unique editions of Russian emigrants published in Paris, Berlin, New York, Prague, Harbin, Shanghai and even Buenos Aires. And in the Department of Fine Arts, they are waiting for you and are ready to offer you not only books and albums on art, but also prints, postcards, photographs, theater bills and posters.
Pashkov's house, engraved in 1799

You can get to the old building of the Library (the famous Pashkov house) without going outside - both buildings are connected by a tunnel. True, employees do not like to use it. In recent years, it has been put in order, but the legends of the "dungeon dwellers" - from rats to ghosts - are not afraid of any reconstruction. By the way, Pashkov's house is also inhabited by a "classic library ghost" - the spirit of Nikolai Rubakin, a bibliologist and writer, whose collection of 80,000 books is kept in Leninka. But jokes aside! We will walk along Mokhovaya (and see on the way another library building - the former M.I.Kalinin Museum, where the Center for Oriental Literature with its unique collections of books from Asian and African countries is located) or along Starovagankovsky Lane, where next to the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker is located the main entrance to the Pashkov house.
Pashkov's house. Modern look

How many legends and stories are associated with this building! People have settled on Vagankovsky Hill since time immemorial, long before the construction of the famous mansion here. Systematic archaeological excavations have never been carried out, so the romantics believe that the hill can hide anything - up to the library of Ivan the Terrible. It is generally accepted that the author of the Pashkov house is V.I.Bazhenov, but from a historical point of view, this can also be considered a legend - there is no evidence that it was this famous architect who built the mansion. The building had a turbulent history - frequent changes of owners and the fire of 1812 in the past, and nowadays, the house that was not damaged in the bombing of the Great Patriotic War almost collapsed during the construction of the Borovitskaya metro station and barely survived the devastation of the 1990s.

Count N.P. Rumyantsev

This is where the Library was born. On July 1, 1862 (almost 150 years ago!) Alexander II signed the "Regulations on the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum". It was the first public museum in Moscow with a public library. Although the "Rumyantsev Museum" appeared much earlier - back in 1828, when, according to the will of Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev, an educator, philanthropist and collector, his richest collection of paintings, books and various rarities was transferred to the treasury. In 1831 in St. Petersburg the Museum was opened to visitors - "for the benefit of the Fatherland and good enlightenment." And only thirty years later, in 1861, he was transferred to Moscow, thereby laying the foundation for the Library.

N.F. Fedorov

What visitors have been to the Library over the years! Great writers, poets and scientists worked here, its funds were replenished by the gifts of famous patrons (including those from the Imperial family). And what librarians served here ... Let us recall at least some - the translator and publisher E.F. Korsh, the lawyer and ethnographer V.A.Dashkov, the great Russian philosopher and close friend of L.N. the library promotes philosophical thought, after all, Immanuel Kant was a librarian!). One of the directors was I. V. Tsvetaev, the future founder of the Museum of Fine Arts. I was struck by the story of the last director of the Rumyantsev Museum - Prince Vasily Dmitrievich Golitsyn. He became director in 1910 and remained in office even after the revolution. Many did not understand Golitsyn - a representative of an old princely family found it possible to work for the Bolsheviks! But it was his choice - to preserve and save the great values ​​turned out to be the most important ... In 1921, Golitsyn was arrested, but unexpectedly released (they say that the staff of the Library was very worried about "their prince"), he even returned to his native walls - however, already not the director, but the head of the art department.

Now the restored Pashkov's house is again open to readers. The restoration, however, not everyone is delighted, some contemptuously call it "European-quality renovation", but if you remember what was happening in the building in the 90s, you can already rejoice. A story is told that in 1992 a huge jasper vase - a gift from Emperor Alexander II - mysteriously disappeared from an almost unguarded mansion. Then, fortunately, I found it. And now you can see the vase, and the restored parquet, and the stairs, and the former ballroom (now it is a prestigious concert and exhibition area overlooking the Kremlin) and the reconstructed old reading room (only the computers on the tables "don't fit").

In Pashkov's house there is a department of Manuscripts, the treasures of which I have already spoken about, a department of Cartography with its huge collection of maps, atlases and unique globes, a department of Music and Sound Records (special equipment was bought for listening to old records, and there is a piano in the hall!).

Fortunately, the idea of ​​opening a restaurant in the tower above did not come to fruition. Exploiting the "Bulgakov fashion", the restaurant was going to be called "Woland". It was here "at sunset high above the city, on the stone terrace of one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow, a building built about one and a half years ago, there were two: Woland and Azazello. They were not visible from the street, as the balustrade blocked out from unnecessary gaze. with plaster vases and plaster flowers. But they could see the city to the very edges "(MA Bulgakov" The Master and Margarita ") And now Bulgakov's manuscripts are kept in this building. And the manuscripts of Gogol, who, admiring the festive illumination in honor of the 25th anniversary of the reign of Nicholas I from the belvedere of the Pashkov house, compared Moscow with the Eternal City, are also collected here.

This is the connection between the times ... Let me end my excursion here. And come to the Library ...

Svetlana Vetka , specially for Etoya.ru

Materials used:
House-legend with a view of the Kremlin. M., Pashkov House, 2007.
Vaskin A. A. Ah, if I could burn all this (published on the website www.exlibris.ng.ru)
The stories of the library staff.


The RSL also has an excellent dining room. Some come here just to drink tea in a warm, comfortable environment. Tea costs 13 rubles, but boiling water is free, some "readers" use it. By the way, the smell in the dining room does not allow you to stay there for too long.


The ceilings are very low, once there was a case when a worker received a concussion, she was taken to the hospital.



Indicators of one day:



- receipt of new documents - 1.8 thousand copies.

Title = "(! LANG: Indicators of one day:
- registration of new users (including new users of the virtual reading rooms of the EDB) - 330 people.
- attendance of reading rooms - 4.2 thousand people.
- the number of visits to the websites of the RSL - 8.2 thousand,
- issuance of documents from the collections of the RSL - 35.3 thousand copies.
- receipt of new documents - 1.8 thousand copies.">!}

Hall of Rare Books - this is where you can touch the most ancient specimens from the collection of the RSL. "Only a reader of the RSL with good reason for this can study the materials of the fund (and the museum exhibits only a small part of it - 300 books), flipping through the pages of unique book monuments. The fund has collected over 100 publications - absolute rarities, about 30 books - the only ones in the world of copies. Here are some more examples of museum exhibits that you can work with in this reading room: "Don Quixote" by Cervantas (1616-1617), "Candide or Optimism" by Voltaire (1759), "Moabite Notebook" (1969), Tatar poet Musa Dzhalidya, written by him in the fascist prison Maobit, "The Arkhangelsk Gospel" (1092). There are the first copies of the works of Pushkin and Shakespeare, books by the publishers Gutenberg, Fedorov, Badoni, Maurice. From the point of view of the history of Russian books will be interesting - Novikov, Suvorin , Marks, Sytin. Cyrillic books are widely represented. "


All you need is your passport!

Opening hours of the Main Building of the Library named after ON THE. Nekrasov

st. Baumanskaya, 58/25, bldg. 14 (metro station "Baumanskaya")

Monday - Saturday: 10.00 - 22.00
Sunday: 10.00 - 20.00
last Tuesday of the month - cleaning day
Tel .: +7 499 261-88-08
Email:

Opening hours of all four addresses of Nekrasovka.

Who can enroll in the library

  • Citizens of the Russian Federation (passport required)
  • Citizens of foreign countries (passport or identity card required)
  • Children under 14 years old can enroll in the presence of parents, guardians or trustees

With a library card you can

  • Take books home
  • Work with publications in the reading room
  • Use electronic resources
  • Work at computers in the reading room
  • Use wi-fi

How to order books

You can order books from our collections for receipt in other divisions of the library through. To do this, select:

  • Transfer by subscription
  • Required point of issue ("department")

Delivery takes up to seven days, except for books from the DH fund (long-distance storage). You can check with the librarian on duty about the execution of the order. Order status can be tracked in.

Issuance and extension of books

You can take home up to 15 books for 1 month. If necessary, you can extend the time of using the book:

  • by phone +7 499 261-88-08
  • through the self-service station in the library
  • the maximum period in which you can use the publication is 30 days
  • the edition can be renewed no more than 2 times, if there is no increased demand for it
  • we will remind you of the terms of return of the publication by phone, SMS or e-mail

You can get and donate books.

  • If you suddenly lose your library card, we will restore it free of charge. The second time it will cost 120 rubles
  • If you do not have time to return the books to the library on time, please try to return them within the next 7 calendar days, otherwise you will not be able to take new editions to your home and you will have to compensate the resulting debt at the rate of 1 RUB / day

** Full version of the List and the amount of compensation for violation of the Library Rules (Download PDF)

What you can do even without a library card

  • Find the literature you need
  • Get to an interesting event

Almost every day something interesting happens in the library. You can find out about the event in three ways: look in the calendar, make friends with us on social networks, subscribe to our newsletter.

  • Learn something new

New book acquisitions, collections, reviews and much more can be found on the main page of our site.

  • Get a book as a gift

The Decommissioned Books portal was created to tell you about the books that Moscow libraries are ready to donate to you. You can see on the map which books are donated by the nearest library, or select interesting books in the catalog.

  • Donate a book to us

You can bring books to us, leave them on duty at the reception and loan bookings. Our address: st. Baumanskaya, 58/25, p. 14 (metro station "Baumanskaya"). Working hours: Mon – Sat: 10:00 - 22:00; Sun: 10:00 - 20:00.

  • Refurbish a book or document

Professional Nekrasovki will determine the condition of your document or book, and then advise on how to proceed with it.

  • Speak in a foreign language

In the evenings you can speak English, German or Spanish.

  • Talk to the director

Every Tuesday from 16:00 to 18:00 you can talk with Maria Alexandrovna on any issues related to the work of the N.A.Nekrasov Central Universal Scientific Library. Before the meeting, you need to make an appointment by phone: 8 495 916-90-68, and then come to the library at st. Baumanskaya, 58/25, bldg. 14 ..

Moscow registration at the place of residence or place of stay is needed only if you want to take books home. In this case, you will be given a library card.

In some libraries, a Muscovite card or a social card of a resident of the Moscow region can be used as a library card. In this case, when registering in the library, such a card will need to be presented along with a passport.

If you do not have a Moscow registration or do not want to issue a library card, you can get a one-time pass. It will allow you to use all the services of the library, but you cannot take the book with you.

2. Can an adult enroll in a children's library?

Adults, youth and children differ only in the composition of the book and magazine fund. Anyone of any age can use the services of any library. That is, an adult, if necessary, has the right to enroll in a children's and youth library, and a child - in an adult.

3. What do you need to write to the library?

To register in the library, it is enough to present a passport or other identity document. Children under 14 years old can be enrolled in the library only in the presence of a legal representative (parent, guardian, curator) and according to his documents.

 In addition, you will be required to complete and sign a library service agreement that includes agreement to the library's terms of use.

4. What else can you do in the library?

In addition to lending books and magazines to your home and using them in the reading room, libraries provide other free services. These may include:

  • access to electronic publications from the library and the National Electronic Library;
  • free Wi-Fi;
  • computers with access to local and remote electronic resources;
  • workplaces with sockets for connecting readers' personal laptops (tablets);
  • the ability to listen to sound recordings and view video recordings;
  • access to electronic libraries of periodicals, reference and information systems on legislation and topical issues of law ("ConsultantPlus" and "Garant"), electronic library of dissertations, electronic library systems;
  • services of bibliographers.

Also, in many libraries, for an additional fee, you can visit sections and master classes, use the services of restorers. Meetings with writers, excursions are held.

6. What if you have lost your library card?

If you have lost your library card, you need to contact the library for a new one. You must have an identity document with you. The first duplicate is usually issued free of charge, the subsequent ones will have to be paid for.

7. How to enroll in the Reading Rooms of the Central State Archives of the city of Moscow?

In the state archive of the city of Moscow, everyone can familiarize themselves with the originals of archival documents.

The following reading rooms operate in the Central State Archives of the city of Moscow:

The hall serves users who work with paper-based documents on the history of the city of Moscow. In a specially designated, isolated working area in hall No. 1, the issuance of especially valuable cases that do not have copies of the use fund, cases that are in an embroidered state and cases with other features are carried out.

"> Hall №1 (Profsoyuznaya st., 80);

The hall serves users who work with copies of the document use fund before 1917, documents from the cultural fund after 1917.

"> Hall №2 (Profsoyuznaya st., 82, building 1);

The hall serves users working with documents of the city of Moscow.

"> Hall No. 3 (Mezhdunarodnaya st., 10, building 4):

Citizens with limited mobility are served in hall No. 2. There, users registered to work in the reading room have the right to work with printed publications (scientific reference literature).

To sign up for reading rooms, you will need:

  • passport or other properly identifying document (temporary identity card, military ID, residence permit);
  • or an official letter () from the sending organization;
  • consent to the processing of personal data (signed on the spot);
  • user profile (filled out on the spot);
  • for users A user who has not reached the age of majority is allowed to work in the reading room with one of the parents or another legal representative who is responsible for maintaining the order. "> Aged 14-18- a letter from an educational institution.

User and Accompanying persons (including legal representatives, translators and other assistants, persons accompanying a user with disabilities) are admitted to the reading room of the archive on the basis of a completed questionnaire, in which, along with other personal data, it is necessary to indicate the type, series, number and the date of issue of the identity document, as well as the authority that issued it.

"> the person accompanying him is issued a pass to work in the reading room, valid for a calendar year from the date of issue. If necessary, the pass can be extended.

Users working with scientific and technical documents are registered on the basis of:

  • a personal statement, or an official letter containing the information necessary to search for an archival document (a specific object of research, its building and postal address);
  • a document confirming the user's authority to obtain documented information on real estate objects in federal ownership, property of the city of Moscow, municipal or private property, incl. on land use and (or) urban planning on land plots belonging to federal property, property of the city of Moscow, municipal and private property (document of ownership or permission of the owner / owners, or the relevant authorized executive body of the city of Moscow);
  • a document confirming the user's right to carry out work with the study / use of information classified by federal laws as the category of limited access, in case of contacting with such information.

The RSL contacted me and offered to make a report about our main library, of course, I gladly agreed.

Within the walls of the Russian State Library there is a unique collection of domestic and foreign documents in 367 languages ​​of the world. There are specialized collections of maps, sheet music, sound recordings, rare books, dissertations, newspapers and other types of publications. The library grants the right to use its reading rooms to all citizens of Russia and other states who have reached the age of 18. About 200 new readers sign up here every day. Almost 4 thousand people come to the RSL every day, and virtual reading rooms located in 80 cities of Russia and neighboring countries serve more than 8 thousand visitors daily.

Today is the first part of a long story about the Russian State Library. In it, you will learn how to borrow a book from the library, look at the vaults and the secret underground passage to the Kremlin.

01. First you need to come to the metro station. "Library named after Lenin ". It will not be renamed in any way. Previously, the RSL (Russian State Library) was also called “Library named after Lenin ". To get into the library, you need to have a library card, it is made in the second entrance. With you in hand: passport, student passport (if student) and 100 rubles for a photo. We fill out the questionnaire, press the button "electronic queue". The coupon comes out. Take it in your hands - it is yours. Numbers are lit on the board above special small offices. Wait for yours and come in. There, a specially trained woman will take your questionnaire and take a picture. You need to immediately decide on the reading room where you will be given books. It is not very clear how to do this without seeing the halls. In 5 minutes the plastic card will be ready. It takes no more than 10 minutes to get a library card.

02. Entrance. The RSL is guarded by a special police regiment. Turnstiles are one of the latest innovations in the library, which, however, was received ambiguously by the readers. Access is via the barcode on the library card. It is not allowed to carry books, cameras and large bags; they must be taken to the storage room.

03.

04. If you already have a list of references - that is, you know exactly what books you need, feel free to step into the hall of the card catalog.

05.

06. The funds of Leninka have more than 43 million storage units. There are specialized collections of maps, sheet music, sound recordings, rare books, dissertations, newspapers and other types of publications.

07.

08. There are always consultants in the hall who will help you navigate the vast array of information.

09.

10.

11. After you have found the book you need in the catalog, you need to get a list of requirements from the consultant.

12. And rewrite all the information about the book into it.

13. For advanced readers, stands with the electronic catalog of the RSL are installed. I honestly tried to take something from Pushkin ...

14. I guess I was too worried because I got the book about potatoes. By the way, since the process of transferring the paper catalog into electronic form has not yet been completed, it does not contain all the books, so many are looking in the old fashioned way in the card index.

16. Once every 15 minutes, a pneumatic mail operator comes for the request sheets.

17. The operator is hiding from prying eyes behind this cabinet.

18. And here is the point of pneumatic mail itself. The system was installed in the library back in the 70s.

19. The sheet is folded, placed in the "cartridge" and sent to the storage tier where the book you ordered is located. This is what the ciphers on the cards are for.

21. By the way, a requirement sheet is not always included in the cartridge. It can be used to send cigarettes, a pen or a love note. Before the new year, employees love to send sweets.

22. This is how the scheme of the receiving and sending station looks like.

23. Pneumatic tubes descend into the basements of the library. By the way, this is a secret passage to the Kremlin, but they asked not to write about it.

24. This is a pneumatic tube repairman. Sometimes negligent employees try to transfer prohibited items (for example, pens), the cartridge can open and then, in order to find and remove the handle, it is necessary to allow pipes. Often the lids simply fly off the cartridges, it is also problematic to get them.

25. In the early 90s, this wonderful machine was installed. They say she can beat Kasparov at chess, but now she just runs the entire pneumatic tube network in the RSL.

26.

27. So, while your request is being processed, which is about 2 hours, you can go have some fun.

28.

29. For example, you can read periodicals - the RSL has all the magazines that are sold in print kiosks - for the current month as well. This can be done in the reading room of periodicals.

30. Five visitors open the doors of the Library every minute.

31. According to the “Law on legal deposit of documents, the Russian State Library is the place of storage of a legal deposit for all printed materials published in Russia.

32. The RSL also has an excellent dining room. Some come here just to drink tea in a warm, comfortable environment. Tea costs 13 rubles, but boiling water is free, some "readers" use it. By the way, the smell in the dining room does not allow you to stay there for too long.

33. While you are drinking tea and absorbing the aromas of home cooking, your request is processed in the book depository.

34. The total length of the RSL bookshelves is about 275 kilometers.

35. The ceilings are very low, once there was a case when a worker received a concussion, she was taken to the hospital.

36. There is a bike in the RSL that the ghost of Nikolai Rubakin lives in storage. At night, when the floors are locked and sealed with wax seals, night attendants hear someone walking, footsteps are clearly audible, doors open and close. Perhaps the fact is that in his will Rubakin indicated that he bequeathed his entire personal collection (which is 75,000 books) to the Lenin Library. After his death, they did so. Only together with the books did they bring an urn with his ashes and for some time it was kept here. Well, what is a personal collection - it is a part of the soul, pencil marks in the margins, folded pages and a lot of many thoughts. They buried Rubakin in Moscow, but his ghost continues to roam the floors ... perhaps turning the pages, rearranging books ...

37. Rubakin - the creator of bibliopsychology - the science of text perception. Author of the book "The Psychology of the Reader and the Book". Developed the ideas of Emil Enneken, author of "Estopsychology". His ideas are widely used in psycholinguistics ..

38. The storage workers receive the "note", take your book and send it to the reading room with the help of conveyors. There are two conveyors in the RSL: the vertical one was designed by Sukhanov in the 70s.

39. Large chain conveyor, commissioned back in 1953.

40. "This is a metro building, there are the same gears as on the escalators in the subway." Nevertheless, it is high time to replace the mechanism with a much more modern analogue. But, as the Director General of the RSL explained, to introduce a new technical system, the conveyor must be stopped, and this threatens that the activities of the entire Library will actually be paralyzed. Only with the commissioning of a new building will it be possible to replace the conveyor.

41. There is also a small version of the chain conveyor. For storage of 41,315,500 copies, premises are used in area equal to 9 football fields, and for each librarian there are 29,830 copies of storage.

42. In 1987, the fund of the special storage department consisted of about 27,000 domestic books, 250,000 foreign books, 572,000 issues of foreign magazines, about 8,500 annual sets of foreign newspapers. These books and magazines could not be obtained by the ordinary reader.

43. Books from storage are waiting for readers.

44. You can't take books home. For reading, the RSL has 37 reading rooms with 2238 seats, of which 437 are computerized.

45.

46. ​​Reading room №3 is the largest, it is a kind of visiting card of the RSL, you can come into it with your laptop, on the side shelves there are dictionaries, for example, ancient Greek-Russian.

47. You can make a copy of a book, it costs 6 rubles per page, but you cannot take pictures. Nobody really explained to me the reason for the ban on photography, there was something incomprehensible about copyright, then about the fact that books deteriorate. It seems to me that the copier spoils the books more than the camera, and if people are allowed to take pictures, for example, illustrations, they will be cut out less and the pages will be torn out.

48. Indicators of one day:
- registration of new users (including new users of the virtual reading rooms of the EDB) - 330 people.
- attendance of reading rooms - 4.2 thousand people.
- the number of visits to the websites of the RSL - 8.2 thousand,
- issuance of documents from the collections of the RSL - 35.3 thousand copies.
- receipt of new documents - 1.8 thousand copies.

49. At the beginning of 2010, the RSL employed 2,140 people, of whom 1,228 were librarians.

50. Women make up about 83% of the total staff of the RSL. The average age of the Library employees is 48.6 years. The average salary is 13,824 rubles.

51. Reading room of the electronic library.

52. Here you can use remote resources and databases to which the RSL is connected - for example, the Cambridge Library, and the databases of the Springer Publishing House - an electronic library of foreign scientific and business journals, the EAST-VIEW database. Search subject - publications on social sciences and humanities. There is also access to the Electronic Library of the RSL and the archive of dissertations.

53. Reading room for Internet and electronic documents. Here you can surf the Internet for 32 rubles per hour. There was also some disgusting photo exhibition taking place here. Incomprehensible photographs were hung from the ceiling so that they could not be seen from being covered with plastic sheets.

54. Hall of official documents, here you can read the files of old newspapers, codes of laws and all kinds of codes. Young people are interested in the vast collection of UN documents (since 1946) and collections of acts, decisions, decisions of the International Court of Human Rights. Here are presented GOSTs for "any occasion of life" - there is even for "ax-splitting ax". For anyone interested in the reading room of the Department of Physical Sciences, free legal advice is organized.

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58. An old sports magazine, a lot of illustrations were cut out. If we take, for example, the Ogonyok magazine for 58, we will see Beria's face painted over with ink. This is the work of the censors of the 1st department.

But in addition to the political, there was also "popular censorship" - the readers obeyed morality. And the RSL is one of the few libraries of the times of the "Iron Curtain" where all issues of foreign magazines were received. There, of course, there was nothing like that, but diligent citizens lengthened their skirts and even glued the pages so that no one could see samples of bourgeois life. Another distinctive feature of the readers of those years was that they cut out advertisements from magazines.

59. Rare Books Room - this is where you can touch the most ancient specimens from the collection of the RSL. "Only a reader of the RSL with good reason for this can study the materials of the fund (and the museum exhibits only a small part of it - 300 books), flipping through the pages of unique book monuments. The fund has collected over 100 publications - absolute rarities, about 30 books - the only ones in the world of copies. Here are some more examples of museum exhibits that you can work with in this reading room: "Don Quixote" by Cervantas (1616-1617), "Candide or Optimism" by Voltaire (1759), "Moabite Notebook" (1969), Tatar poet Musa Dzhalidya, written by him in the fascist prison Maobit, "The Arkhangelsk Gospel" (1092). There are the first copies of the works of Pushkin and Shakespeare, books by the publishers Gutenberg, Fedorov, Badoni, Maurice. From the point of view of the history of Russian books will be interesting - Novikov, Suvorin , Marks, Sytin. Cyrillic books are widely represented. "

60. Microfilms were made for some of the books. And, if the availability of the original source is not of paramount importance for the work (paper, ink, etc. are not important, but the content is valuable), the microfilm will be given out in the reading room. The original is out of the question.

62. As it turned out, many readers of the book steal, and quite often. Particularly inventive people cut out a valuable book from the cover, and insert another, similar in size, into it. Often they just rip out pages or cut out illustrations. And although it is easy to establish a thief or a vandal, it is almost impossible to bring him to justice, for this you need at least 2 witnesses who saw how they spoil the book.

64. In books, cards and documents are sometimes forgotten. Once, in the 80s, a forgotten gold piece was found.

65. Pink Corridor "- one of the exhibition areas of the RSL.

66. Remains from old telephone booths.

67. Meeting room of the RSL - here the fate of the library is decided - the directorship is held every week, the course of development is determined, decisions are made.

68. The RSL is the fourth largest library in the world in terms of collections, the British Library is in first place - 150 million items against our 42.

69. Some of the reading rooms offer stunning views of the Kremlin.

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72. There are also good views from the top floors of the book depository, unfortunately, while I was walking there, the weather turned bad.


Click on the photo for a larger view.

73. They work in libraries with families, for example Olga Viktorovna Serezhina, she has been working for 41 years, her mother worked here for 40 years.

74. On the left Natalia, her daughter, has been working here for 7 years)

75. And this is a policeman, he was extremely indignant that I had photographed him, threatened to take his head off. He urgently needs to be given a referral to the hall of official and regulatory documents so that he can read the laws. Otherwise, he spends all his free time chatting on the phone with his wife.

76. Soon there will be a separate story about how books are scanned, restored and repaired.

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The library has two main sites - www.rsl.ru - where you can read about all the services and news - who has come where, what exhibitions are taking place. And www.leninka.ru - here is the history of the RSL from the moment of its establishment

All photos presented in this report belong tophoto agency "28-300" , on the use of pictures, as well as photo shoots, write to e-mail [email protected]