Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR

(Central Scientific Library), in Kiev, the largest book repository in the Ukrainian SSR and one of the largest libraries in the USSR.

This library was founded in 1919 as the All-Peoples Library of the Ukraine of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Since 1965 it has had its present name. From the first years of its existence this library has received mandatory deposit copies of published works in Russian and Ukrainian. During the period of the German fascist occupation approximately 700,000 books were transported to Germany. As of Jan. 1, 1970, the library holdings numbered more than 6 million items, including the following: 264,605 manuscripts; 523 incunabula; more than 6,500 books in Slavic type of the 15th to 18th centuries; 153,168 copies of musical scores; approximately 120,000 reproductions, engravings, and other illustrative materials; over 70,000 annual sets of newspapers; collections of prerevolutionary and first Soviet editions of the works of K. Marx, F. Engels, and V. I. Lenin; collections of illegal Russian revolutionary publications (including Kolokol, Poliarnaia zvezda, and Iskra), collections of the revolutionary Ukrainian press (including Vpered, Kiev, 1896–99, and Proletarii, Khar’kov, 1917). The library also owns some first editions of Slavic printed books—S. Tiol’s Chasoslovets (1491), the Russian Bible of G. Skorina (Prague, 1517–19), and almost all the publications of Ivan Fedorov (the Apostle, 1564, the Ostrog Bible, 1581, and others). In the manuscript division the following monuments of Glagolitic writing are preserved: the Kievan Glagolitic Leaves (tenth century), an excerpt from the Slepchinsk Apostle (12th century), the Orshan Gospel (13th century), a rare example of Ukrainian writing called the Peresopnitsky Gospel (1556–61), and the charters and edicts of Bogdan Khmel’nitskii. There are also manuscripts of the works and letters of the Ukrainian writers I. Franko, M. Kotsiubinskii, Lesia Ukrainka, and others, as well as copies of the works of M. V. Lomonosov, A. N. Radishchev, A. S. Griboedov, and M. Iu. Lermontov. Of special value are the rare editions in the Ukrainian language.

In 1969 the library had 17 reading rooms equipped with 676 seats. Approximately 30,000 readers are served annually. Upon request from organizations and individual readers, the library provides bibliographical information and also prepares photocopies and microfilms from publications which it has in its collections. It also carries on intra-Union and international interlibrary loans. The library conducts book exchanges with 180 organizations in the USSR and 1,428 institutions in 64 countries throughout the world. It also carries out scientific research and methodological and publishing work in the field of library science and bibliography.