Every Slavic librarian in the United States has used Rudolf
Smits' bibliography Half a Century of Soviet Serials.
Published before the Internet and the introduction of online
library catalogs, this bibliography was a mainstay for verifying
serials published in the Soviet Union and identifying the
holdings of US and Canadian libraries. Even today it remains
an important tool for locating holdings, as the Library of
Congress does not yet provide all serial holdings in its
online catalog and many American research libraries have
not fully converted their older foreign language holdings
into online records. Murlin Croucher in Slavic Studies describes Half
a Century of Soviet Serials as "an invaluable source
of serial information."
According to its preface, this bibliography details "all
known serial publications [except newspapers] appearing in
the Soviet Union . . . since 1917, in all except oriental
languages, such as Armenian, Georgian, Kirghiz, etc." Many
titles published in the various former republics are included,
but a serial must have a Russian title page and some text
in Russian for it to qualify for inclusion. A complementary
bibliography of non-Russian Soviet serials was planned, but
never completed. Although the entries are numbered at 27,699,
there are actually 29,761 because of last minute titles inserted
with alphanumeric IDs. The entries are constructed according
to the old Rules for Descriptive Cataloging in the Library
of Congress, that is, for corporate bodies that are
perceived as being permanently physically located in a particular
place, one must look under the place. For example, publications
by universities are found under the city (in its English
spelling) in which they are located, e.g., Moscow. Universitet.
Filologicheskii fakul'tet. Doklady i soobshcheniia. Corporate
bodies that are not permanently tied to physical locations,
such as societies that can move from place to place, will
be found under the name of the society, e.g., Obshchestvo
po izucheniiu Kryma, Simferopol. Biulleten'. Fortunately,
there are over 28,000 cross references to help mitigate potential
confusion. The bibliography uses the Library of Congress' romanization
(transliteration) system.
As a union list, Half a Century of Soviet Serials provides
locations of U.S. and Canadian libraries that hold issues
of the serial titles included. Detailed holdings are given
for the Library of Congress, but symbols only are listed
for other libraries. The library
symbols, a complete list of which is found in the prefatory
materials in both volumes, are the same as those used in
the Union List of Serials and the National Union
Catalog. The abbreviation "w" is used to indicate that
LC lacks or "wants" a particular volume or issue. An asterisk
indicates that no library in the United States or Canada
was found to hold that title. The LC holdings and call numbers
are still mostly correct except for items marked Cyr. 4 and
Unclass. Please check LC's online catalog or email the European
Division at eurref@loc.gov for
more information about those items. Half a Century of
Soviet Serials expands and supersedes Smits' earlier
bibliography, Serials Publications of the Soviet Union,
1939-1957.
Rudolf Smits (1907-1972), the compiler of this bibliography,
enjoyed a long and distinguished administrative and bibliographic
career at the Library of Congress. After working for the
American Legation in Riga from 1928-1934 and serving as the
Secretary to the Latvian legation in Washington from 1936-1940,
Smits joined the Library of Congress in 1945 as the chief
of the Census Library Project, which was charged with compiling
bibliographies of publications of U.S. and international
censuses and vital statistics, filling lacunae in the Library's
collection of such publications, as well as conducting reference
work involving population research. In late 1945 he became
the head of the Documents Section in the Serial Record Division.
He remained until 1948, when he began a brief stint as the
chief of the Government Publications Reading Room in the
Serial Division. In 1949 he took over as head of the Bibliography
Unit, Air Information Section in the Air Studies Division.
Smits' unit was responsible for compiling bibliographies,
maintaining the Slavic Union Catalog, and producing
abstracts of foreign information sources on topics of interest
to the U.S. Air Force. He also served as Chairman of the
Special Committee on Eastern European Publications. In January
of 1952 the Slavic Union Catalog was transferred
to the newly formed Cyrillic Union Catalog section
in the Reference Department and Smits was appointed chief
and supervised a staff of 27 in creating the Cyrillic
Union Catalog and the monthly List of Russian Accessions.
In 1970 after the demise of the Cyrillic Union Catalog section,
Smits joined the Serial Record Division where he worked on
the renowned bibliography produced by the Library of Congress, New
Serial Titles.
Half a Century of Soviet Serials is also linked to a permanent entry in the Library of Congress online catalog.
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