SRC Library news (from SRC English News Letter)
SRC Library news (from SRC English News Letter)
News from the Library (No.3 , December,1995)
Of the many new acquisitons in 1995, the most noteworthy are the following:
- Eesti Vabariigi Riigikogu protokollid [The Congressional Proceedings of the Republic of Estonia] Tallinn.This seventy-eight volume set contains the proceedings of the Estonian Congress during the interwar period. They cover the proceedings of the National Council from 1917 to 1919 (Maankogu protokollid. 1. Koosolekust 1. juulil 1917-78. Koosolekuni 6. veebruaril 1919), the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly at which the constitution was procleimed (the first session to the fifth session, 1919-1920)(Asutawa Kogu protokollid, 1919-1920), and the proceedings from the first State Assembly to the fifth State Assembly, 1921-1934 (I Riigikogu protokollid , V Riigikogu protokollid, 1921-1934).
Included with the proceedings are supplementary laws and annual budgets from 1925 to 1934/35 (Eesti vabariigi kulude ja tulude eelarve 1925-1934/35. aastaks), the budgetary records concerning government enterprises and national industries, 1929-1931/32 (Riigi ettevoete ja riigi asutiste valitseda olevate eriotstarbeliste kapitalide 1929-1931/32. a. eelarved), the budgetary records concerning banks, government enterprises, and national industries, 1931/32-1934/35 (Eripoikirjade ja maaruste alusel teotsevate pankade ning katiste ja usikute riigiasutiste valitseda olevate eriotstarbeliste kapitalide 1931/32-1934/35. a. erieelarved), the budgetary records concerning land reform, 1930/31 (Asunduskapitali 1930/31. a. eelarve), and the basic customs laws (Tollipoitariifiede seadus).
The Congressional proceedings contain materials fundamental for the study of the politics and history of Estonia before World War II. - The remainder of the 200 microfilm reels of the Boris Nicolaevsky Collection, about half of which was obtained in 1994, has been received. As a result, the library now has the entire Boris Nicolaevsky Collection on microfilm. A useful guidebook for this collection has been published under the title: Guide to the Boris I. Nicolaevsky Collection in the Hoover Institution Archives. 1989. (Hoover Press bibliography, 74).
News from the Library (No.4 , November,1996)
It is well-known that State Archival Service of Russia (Rossarkhiv) and Hoover Institute on War, Revolution and Peace are jointly publishing Microfilm collection of documents from 3 major archives in Moscow under the title:
Archives of the Soviet Union and Soviet State. We want to report that most of its opis' (the list of documents) are among our new acquisitions this year. We are projecting to collect completely this very principal set of sources on Soviet history.
Besides this, the first installment of "Comintern Archive," published jointly by The Russian Centre for the Conservation and Study of Records of Modern History (RTsKhIDNI) and the IDC, was added to the collection of the SRC Library. This part covers documents from the first Congress (1919) to the fourth (1922).
News from the Library (No.5 , December 1997)
The acquisition of the microfilm collection of 3 major archives in Moscow under the title: Archives of the Soviet Union and Soviet State is on-going. In the last fiscal year, more than 650 reels were purchased and are now available for readers. We also continue to acquire "Comintern archives," a joint publication by the Russian Center for the Conservation and Study of Records of Modern History, and the Inter Documentation Company of the Netherlands.
The microfilm collection "Yugoslavia: peoples, states and society" was added recently to the SRC collection. It consists of 109 reels of microfilms, contains more than 2,000 pamphlets and short monographs, mainly in Serbo-Croatian languages. Original materials were in the UCLA Library.
The acquisition of G. Y. Shevelov Collection (No.6 , December 1998)
This year, the SRC library began to purchase the personal library of Professor Geroge Y. Shevelov. Born in Lomza in 1908, he studied and taught in Khar'kov, emigrated to Germany, then to the US., where he served as a professor of Slavic philology at Columbia University from 1958 to 1977. He is a distinguished linguist, philologist and literary critic.
Last year professor Shevelov and the SRC made an agreement on the purchase of his library. Following the agreement, the SRC received part of his collection. His works will be kept in a special part of the SRC's library. We expect this acquisition will strongly enhance our collection on Slavic linguistics and the Ukraine, and contribute greatly to the development of these fields in Japan.
News from the Library (No.7 , December 1999)
The Hokkaido University Library System was upgraded in March 1999. One of the benefits of the new system is a quicker and more sophisticated version of the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). Prior to the upgrade, although equipped with an English interface, all locations were indicated in Japanese kanji and kana characters, therefore it was not much use for foreigners who were unfamiliar with Japanese. The new OPAC presents not only bibliographic but also other information in English, including the SRC's collection. Throughout the new system's development, the SRC's library staff cooperated closely with the University Library.
The new OPAC's URL is as follows:http://opac.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/opac/
For other libraries in Japan, a list of OPACs is available from the following site:http://ss.cc.affrc.go.jp/ric/opac/opacE.html
The Acquisition of the Library of Prof. James Gibson (No.8 , December 2000)
The SRC recommended the purchase of the library of James R. Gibson, historical geographer and professor emeritus of York University, Ontario, Canada, for the University Library. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture has accepted our proposal and has decided to finance the acquisition. The University Library acquired the collection in the beginning of 2000, and is now in the process of cataloging it.
The collection consists of 2,544 items, comprised of 8 parts:
- ) Russian America (337 items)
- ) History of Siberia (652 items)
- ) Russian anthropology and ethnography (127 items)
- ) Russian history (452 items)
- ) Historical geography of Russia (304 items)
- ) Contemporary USSR/CIS/Russian geography (533 items)
- ) Atlases of USSR/CIS/Russia (84 items)
- ) Supplementary materials (55 items)
We chose a small sample of 70 items from the Russian America's part of the collection and checked holdings of these items in Japan. Using the electronic union catalog, which includes the holdings of most major academic libraries in Japan, we found that Hokkaido University had the richest collection in this field, even before the acquisition of the collection. Hokkaido University held 37 items out of the 70 sample items. Kyushu University, with 14 items out of 70 (20%), had the second largest number. In third place were Nagoya University and the University of Tokyo, each 10/70 items. We found that 24 items in the sample met no holdings in Japan.
The Gibson collection will much enhance library holdings in the subject areas mentioned above. Not only Hokkaido University, but the historical/geographical studies of Northern areas in Japan as a whole will benefit from this acquisition.
By Y. Tonai
Acquisition of Rare Ukrainian Serial Publications (No.9 , December 2001)
We purchased this microfilm set, produced and distributed by Norman Ross Publishing Inc. this year. It consists of 513 reels, contains runs of more than 200 title of newspapers and journals. Most of them were originally published in Galicia, Bukovina or Transcarpatia at the second half of 19th century or at the beginning of 20th century under Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
We hope that this collection will be used as a fundamental source of political, social and ethnical history of Western Ukraine, much help to understand this historically and ethnically very interesting region.
By Y. Tonai
Acquisition of Several Rare Materials by the University Library (No.10 , December 2002)
The University Library purchased a small collection of Russia-related materials, financed specially by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
The collection includes following items.
A large format atlas, chiefly consists of printed maps of every province of Russia, compiled from 1770's to 1790's.
A collection of 95 plates from <<Открываемая Россия, или, Собрание одежд всех народов в Российской империи обретающихся>>, bound in 1 volume. These plates are also used for the German edition of the exploration report by Johann Gottlied Georgi <<Beschreibung aller Nationen des Russischen Reiches...>> published in St. Petersburg from 1776 to 1780.
2 editions of Sigmund von Herberstein's famous and important work <<Rerum Moscovitiarum Commentarii>>. The one is 2nd Latin edition, published in Basel, 1551, and the other is 4th German edition, published in Frankfurt, 1576.
Klaploth, Julius von. Reise in den Kaukasus und nach Georgien unternommen in den Jahren 1807 und 1808. 2 in 3 vols. (Halle ; Berlin, 1812-1814) .
The purchase was projected according to the recommendation of the SRC and we are sure that these materials will serve as an organic part of the Slavic collection at the University Library.
By Tonai Y.
Library of Prof. G. Y. Shevelov (No.10 , December 2002)
Prof. George Y. Shevelov died in April 12th in this year in New York. At the time of his passing, he was 93 years old and we would like to express our sincere grief over the sad news.
As we wrote earlier in this newsletter, his library is in the process of being transferred to the Library of the SRC. Now we would like to report that the final part of his library has already shipped to Japan. Dr. Theodore Kostiuk, the heir of the late professor and Prof. Miloslava Znayenko organized the last shipment. We are very grateful for their cooperation in accomplishing the agreement between the late professor and us. That part of his library is in the storehouse of our agent, and expected to be moved to the SRC Library in the next year.
News from the Library (No.11 , December, 2003)
The Library purchased part of the library of Prof. Gregory Grossman and part of that of the late Prof. NONOMURA Kazuo. G. Grossman is a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley specializing in Soviet and Socialist economies. His book "Economic systems" (1st ed. 1967, 2nd ed. 1974) was translated into Japanese in 1969. The late Prof. Nonomura (1913-1998) was a professor at the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. He also specialized in the Soviet economy.
Materials from the library of Prof. Nonomura were acquired from 2000 to 2003 and the total volume is 1,175. Among them, there were 912 volumes of Russian books and 37 Japanese books. We have finished cataloging them and they will soon be incorporated into our Slavic Collection. From the library of Prof. G. Grossman, we purchased 392 volumes of books chiefly written in English, some monograph series issues, periodical issues and related files.
The acquisition process and cataloging are ongoing now, and they will also soon be incorporated into the collection.
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News from the Library (No.12 , December, 2004)
The organization of Slavic Research Center Library has been significantly changed. From July 1st 2004, it has become a branch of the University Library. At the same time, a large portion of the work at the SRC library, such as acquisition, cataloging, and circulation have moved to the related sections in the University Library. Now the SRC Library is particularly engaged in selection and budget control, reference (the maintenance of the reference collection is included) and circulation of materials which did not move to the Central Library yet.
This was a result of long negotiation between the SRC and the University Library, which wanted to merge faculty libraries concerning humanities or social sciences, such as the Faculty of Law or Faculty of Economics, to enhance its personal resources and collection.
A large part of the materials collected by the SRC Library is concentrated in one place at the stack room of the University. Such an allocation system will be continued, at least for monographs and dissertations. At first, the SRC requested to organize a new section for Slavic materials in the university library, or reorganize the Northern Collection Room to extend its coverage to the Slavic materials, but such a proposal was not accepted. In the end, the University Library accepted to retain the SRC library, which will be kept as a service point of the University Library with no full-time administrative staff.
From this July, all newly acquired materials belong to the University Library, which is now responsible for storage and circulation of them, but they are temporarily located mainly in the SRC, because of the shortage of space at the University Library. We hope that our Slavic Collection will find a more suitable location in the University Library, serving more people, and that the new organization of the Library will help its development in the future.
TONAI Yuzuru
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Our New Acquisitions (No.13, February 2006)
Here we would like to introduce some of our new library acquisitions.
Among microform collections of Russian archival materials, we collected the following items:
- Russo-japanese War, 1904-1905 (170 reels)
- The papers of White Army, 1918-1921 (71 reels)
- The papers of Red Army: Political and International Intelligence Reports, 1918-1938 (76 reels)
All of these materials are reproduction of documents kept in RGVA (Российский государственный военный архив), produced by Primary Source Microfilm.
Besides them, the Library purchased materials, also concerning military history of Russia, or the history of the Russian Civil War, for exampl:
- Военный сборник(1858-1917, Microfoche 4,201 sheets, IDC
- Anti-Soviet Newspapers (91 reels, IDC)
We hope that these newly acquired materials will be useful and help the progress of the study of Russia/Soviet History in Japan.
TONAI Yuzuru
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Most of the Library of Late Professor George Shevelov Catalogued(No.14 , December 2006)
This year, the university library applied for a program for retrospective conversion of catalogs for collections, which includes useful, but not yet included in the Union Catalog System (NACSIS-CAT) and written not in major Western languages to catalog the library of the late Professor George Shevelov, along with the request of the SRC Library. It was adopted by the NII (National Institute for Informatics), the cataloging began this May, and most of the collection was catalogued by this October.
TONAI Yuzuru
Documents of the Plenums of the Central Committee CPSU, 1941-1990 (No.15, December, 2007)
The Library began to purchase microfilms of the documents of the Plenums of the Central Committee CPSU, 1941-1990. Original documents are located at RGANI (Russian State Archive of Contemporary History) in Moscow as fond 2, opis' 1, 3, and 5. The set consists of a hundred and eighty-one microfilm reels and six hundred and fifty-six sheets of microfiche, and the library now holds its first seventy-six reels.
Shimada Archives Deposite (No.15, December, 2007)
Shimada Mototaro (島田元太郎1870-1945) was born in a small village in Nagasaki Prefecture. In his very young age, he moved to Vladivostok and then to Nikolaevsk-na-Amure, initiated a commercial company in his name, and the company prospered greatly at the beginning of the twentieth century. But his company was badly damaged in the Nikolaevsk Incident (March-May, 1920). All employees and their families living in the city died and most of the properties were lost. It was his good luck to be visiting Japan and he survived. After the incident, he tried to revive his company, and reopened his shop in the city, but after all, had to withdraw from the Russian Far East. At the same time, he stood at the front of the movement, which required compensation for the loss of Japanese citizens in the Nikolaevsk Incident from the government and received three sets of compensation.
The Library began to catalog the archives from the Shimada family in March 2006. There are some eight hundred items, both documents and photographs, mainly concerning the movement for compensation. The Library also engaged in digitization of the archives. This July, a preliminary catalog has been compiled and digitization completed. And now, the Shimada family has generously allowed the Library to make the archive open to the public, and deposit it at the SRC Library. We are very grateful to the Shimada family in this regard.
Renovation of the Building (No.15, December, 2007)
In recent years, Japanese national universities are rapidly undergoing renovation of their buildings mainly for seismic reinforcement to match new construction standards, amended in 1980. The situation is similar in Hokkaido University, and now the university administration has requested the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to renovate our SRC building in the next fiscal year. If it is accepted, then we have to evacuate the building at least for several months in fiscal year 2008. During the renovation, the library will be open in another place of the same campus, but we cannot maintain access to all materials for our patrons, so please pay attention to our announcements in the future.
TONAI Yuzuru
Renovation of the Building in Progress (No.16, January, 2009)
The SRC building is now under renovation for seismic reinforcement from August 2008, and the library is now located at temporary housing near the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics. The renovation work is expected to finish at the end of February 2009, and the library will return to its home in March or April 2009.
The first floor, which the library occupies, will be rearranged completely. Most of the walls, which partitioned rooms and the passageway, will be removed and we will use the whole floor more efficiently.
Subscription to Periodicals Will Be Slashed (No.16, January, 2009)
The SRC Library subscribes to some 400 periodicals. They are academic journals from Russia, Central Eurasia, Eastern Europe, or other areas of the world, newspapers, official gazettes, etc. We want to maintain the range of subscription, but rising costs and our financial situation in recent years are forcing us to cut subscription to nearly 100 titles from 2009. Please forgive us for the inconvenience.
TONAI Yuzuru
The renovation work of the SRC building (No.17, January, 2010)
The renovation work of the SRC building was completed in February, and whole sections of the SRC, including the Library, moved there from April to May. Now, all library materials are concentrated on the first floor. Back issues of newspapers are the exception. They are located in a warehouse outside the campus, and readers who want to use them are to request the necessary parts one week before. But for other materials, we think that their accessibility has somewhat improved.
Donation to the Library of the Late Professor Kudo Yukio (No.17, January, 2010)
This year, the Library received a large donation from the late Professor Kudo Yukio (19252008). He was the most active translator and introducer of Polish literature after WW II in Japan, and his collection is mostly composed of books, periodicals, and pamphlets on Polish literature, culture, and political movements. They are now awaiting selection at the corner of the library, and we hope to merge them with our library in the near future, which will greatly enhance our Polish collection.
Here, we wish to express our gratitude to his bereaved family and all those who helped with the donation for their understanding and cooperation.
Russian Atlases on our Website (No.17, January, 2010)
This May, the Library opened a new website,http://srcmaterials-hokudai.jp/. It makes accessible our two Russian atlases, both published at the beginning of the last century. Users of the site can also seek fond names at the Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East in Vladivostok and look at photographs of POW camps in the Russo-Japanese War in Japan.
TONAI Yuzuru
New Digital Collection : Turkestanskii sbornik (No.17, January, 2010)
We have recently purchased a digital version of Turkestanskii sbornik [Turkestan Collection], whose original is located at the National Library of Uzbekistan named after Alisher Navoi. Turkestanskii sbornik is a fundamental collection of literature on the natural environment, history, ethnography, economy, administration, geopolitics, and other topics concerning Central Asia. It consists of five-hundred and ninety four volumes that contain more than ten thousand excerpts from books, magazines, and newspapers, published in the Russian Empire and Western countries. Its compilation began in 1868 under the direction of the first Turkestan governor-general Konstantin von Kaufman, and continued intermittently until 1916. The digital collection we purchased is a second set after that possessed by the Center for Integrated Area Studies at Kyoto University. While the Kyoto version consists of several hundred CD-ROMs, the new version at the SRC is contained in a single hard disk.
UYAMA Tomohiko
Renovation of the University Library is Underway (No.18, February, 2011)
In 2010, renovation work of the University Library began, and this will affect its users. From last September, most of the special collections were moved and became unavailable. So we cannot use the G. Vernadsky Collection, J. Gibson Collection, Russian Emigre Literature Collection, L. Bernstein Collection, etc. until the summer of 2012. Microform materials have been moved to other places and most of them are accessible, but reservation is necessary.
In the fall of this 2011, renovation work will proceed to the stack rooms, in which our Slavic Collection, dissertation works, and other materials acquired by the center are housed, so all these materials will have to be temporarily moved.
We are now trying to find a location for them independently so as to make them available to our patrons and limit the effects of the renovation, but it is not an easy task.
When the renovation has finished in 2012, library arrangements will be quite different. We will tell you about it in the next issue.
TONAI Yuzuru
Ongoing Renovation of the University Library Building (No.19, February, 2012)
As announced earlier last year that the University Library building has been undergoing
renovation (scheduled to finish in fall, 2012). During the meantime, some library services
are unavailable to the users. Those services include access to special collections of the
Slavic studies such as “Collection of Russian Emigre Literature,” “Library of Prof. James R.
Gibson,” “Boris Souvarine Collection” and dissertations from North America and the UK.
The periodicals of the Slavic Collection are also temporarily inaccessible because of being
relocated to a newly equipped automatic stack system. We apologize for any inconvenience
this may have incurred.
The Latin script part of the Slavic Collection will be incorporated into the European
language books in the Central Library. It is hoped that our valuable collections will be
properly located by the completion of renovation.
British Parliamentary Papers and FBIS Datebase Introduced (No.19, February, 2012)
Last year the University Library began the subscription of the online database of the
19th & 20th century Parliamentary Papers (House of Commons), the access to which is now
available from all Hokudai campuses.
The Slavic Research Center begins subscribing to some parts of the FBIS database, which
consists of English translations of newspaper articles and reports from new agencies (dated
from 1940 to 1996). The access to the subscribed FBIS database is only available from the
SRC computers. Users can find the relevant entrance on the SRC Library website.
TONAI Yuzuru
Completion of Renovation of the Building of the University Library Introduced (No.20, February, 2013)
The renovation work of the building of the University Library was completed in March 2012, and relocation of its library materials was undertaken up until October 2012. So all library materials are available at the University Library. We would like to point out that books in Latin script in the “Slavic Collection” have been absorbed into the European books on the fourth floor and only “Cyrillic Books” and “Dissertations” remain as separate sections in the University Library.
Digitized Old Maps of Sakhalin (No.20, February, 2013)
The Library has developed a small website and opened to the public two atlases of Imperial Russia and other materials from 2009. We modified and expanded it a little in September 2012. Four old maps of Sakhalin from 1865 to 1921 were newly included in it, and visitors can see them in detail and download files from the website. The URL of the site is: http://srcmaterials-hokudai.jp/
Introduction of the Integrum Database (No.20, February, 2013)
In April 2012, the Integrum Database was introduced. It covers many newspapers, periodicals, and other materials of Russian and former Soviet Union countries. It is available within networks of Hokkaido University campuses.
TONAI Yuzuru
Purchase of Sakhalin Maps(No.22, March, 2015)
The SRC Library purchased 60 sheets of topographical maps of Sakhalin with a scale
of 1:25,000, compiled by the Japanese military authorities in the 1920s and 1940s. Among them, 28 sheets, based on measurement in 1942, cover most of the northern periphery of South Sakhalin; 24 sheets, based on measurement in 1940, cover several parts of North Sakhalin; and 8 sheets, based on measurements in 1924, cover Okha and its surrounding areas.
The publishing house Kagaku Shoin published a reprint of old topographical maps of
Sakhalin with a scale of 1:25000 in 2000. It contains most parts of our new acquisition, but the last 8 sheets are not included there, and the Library seems to be the only holder in the world.
We are now preparing to add these 8 sheets of maps and some other new photos to our
website. The URL is: http://srcmaterials-hokudai.jp
Tonai Yuzuru
Microfilm of “Československý denník”(No.23, March, 2016)
In 2014 and 2015, the SRC Library purchased four reels of “Československý denník,” which cover whole issues. The newspaper began to be published by the Czechoslovak National Council, after the October Revolution in Russia, in December 1917 in Kiev. It was the organ of the Czechoslovak Legion, so its place of issue transferred along with the movement of the Legion. From March to April 1918, it was issued in Penza and, after that, moved to Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Omsk again, Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Manchuria, and finally Vladivostok from April to July 1920.
It is well known that the Czechoslovak Legion was a very important actor in the Russian Civil War, and the newspaper provides us with invaluable insider information.
Tonai Yuzuru
The Library(No.24, April, 2017)
The library is maintaining and expanding our web gallery of old maps and photos mainly
on the Russian Far East, as we mentioned here in 2013 and even earlier. In March 2015,
we added two photo albums on North Sakhalin around 1920 to the gallery and, in October
2016, we added two more photo albums on the Siberian expedition of the Japanese Army
and Navy from 1918 to 1921, geological maps of Okha by Japanese engineers, and several
maps of Sakhalin in the first half of the 20th century.
The URL of the gallery is http://srcmaterials-hokudai.jp/
Tonai Yuzuru
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