To mark its 300th anniversary the Academy of Sciences’ library is preparing some revelations

The Presidential Library launches the activities timed to the 300th anniversary of the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In honor of this event, a video lecture took place, which also included a meeting of the Director General of the RAS library, Valery Leonov and of the Presidential Library, Alexander Vershinin.

"In honor of its 300th anniversary, the RAS library is preparing some interesting revelations," said Valery Leonov. We consider the possibility of presenting unique documents on the history of the Russian state from the Library of the Academy of Sciences in electronic holdings of the Presidential Library. It is also important to work together to make public the collections of the Russian Orthodox Church, which are held by the "academic" library. In particular, the Presidential Library intends to digitize the archive of the Holy Trinity Alexander-Svirsky Monastery, which turned out to be stored in the Academy of Sciences after the revolution. It was decided to carry out the examination and evaluation of these collections with the participation of the monastery’s superior Mstislav, bishop of Tikhvin and Lodeinoye Pole.

Valery Leonov also donated to the Presidential Library author's copies of his books about the history of the oldest academic library in the country. The strong partnerships established between the two leading libraries in the country and in the world allow consolidation of efforts in the field of the modern approach to the development of the librarianship.

The Library of the Academy of Sciences was founded in 1714 by Peter I to provide access to books to every literate person aspiring to European education. The initial collection of the library numbered about 16,000 books on various subjects in Russian and European languages, but now it comprises about 21 million units.

The Library of the RAS has the so-called "reserved collection", which includes more than one million eight hundred thousand publications issued by the Academy of Sciences from the moment of the foundation of the academic publishing to the present day. All books of the "reserved collection" perform a memorial function and are unavailable to readers.