Library for Public Education

(full name until 1969, K. D. Ushinskii State Library for Public Education; since 1969 known as the K. D. Ushinskii Scientific Pedagogical Library of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR), the largest scholarly pedagogical library in the USSR, located in Moscow.

The Library for Public Education was founded in 1925 as the reference library of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR. In 1932 it was transformed into the Central Library for Public Education, and in 1939 it was combined with the Library of the Institute of Schools and reorganized into the State Library for Public Education. In 1944 it was included in the system of scientific-research institutions of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR (since 1966, the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR).

As of Jan. 1, 1970, the library’s collections totaled 1.5 million items, including 220,000 foreign publications. Each year the library serves an average of 15,000 scientific and scholarly workers and teachers by means of bibliographical materials, information, and consultations. It has both an interlibrary system and an international loan system; it also conducts national and international book exchange programs. The library has been developing the index Literature on Pedagogical Sciences and Public Education (since 1951, four issues per year), as well as recommending indexes of literature on urgent problems in teaching and education and retrospective summarial indexes of pedagogical literature.