some impressions on soviet scientific information...

SOME IMPRESSIONS ON SOVIET SCIENTIFICINFORMATION SERVICES

Describes the work of acquisition ofpublications in the Soviet InformationCentres and Libraries in respect of centr~-li.sed organisation, Statutory obligationsand exchanges. Explains the various Abs-tracting and Lnd ex i ng services. Gives allaCCO\lIltof the Current AwareIlt:ss S&rvices.Mentions the pres~nt approach towards clas-sification. Describes the translation s~r-vic~s and traces the developm~nt of auto-mation in Information s&rvices.

INTRODUCTION

Under the Indo-Soviet Cultural Ex-change P'ro g r arnrne , I was provided with anopportunity to visit the USSR during themonths May - August 1964 to study theSoviet information and library practices.My programme of study was organised bythe VINITI (= Vsesoyuznii Institut Nauchnoii Tekhnicheskoi Informatsii. All UnionInstitute for Scientific and Technical Infor-mation). While several valuable surveyshave been made and have been publishedalready, an attempt is made in this paperto record my own observations by way ofaddition to our existing knowledge on theSoviet Information practices. It is alsohoped that the account given in this paperrnay be of some use to those engaged insimilar work in our country.

ACQUISITION

Centralised organisation of acquisi-tion work, extensive exchange relations andstatutory obligations for several librariesto get Soviet publications are some of thesalient features in the acquisition of ma-terials by the Soviet libraries.

Centralised Acquisition

The Soviet Union follows a system ofcentralised acquisition for obtaining reading

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mater ial.s , This system is found helpful andhas now reached a high degree of perfectionyielding good results. All big libraries andthe Central Info rrnatton Services are in aposition to get every Soviet publication andall worthwhile foreign publications. Thesc ierrti s ta are thereby assured of access toworld literature. Every possible effort isbeing rnade to obtain publications fromalmost all countries and published inseveral languages. Three organisationsare presently engaged in the work of centra-lised acquisition. They are:

1. Vsesoyuznaya Knizhnaya Palata,Krernlevskaya Naberezhnaya 1/9,Moscow G-l9 (All Union BookChamber)

2. Tsentralnii Kollektor Na.uchnrkhBibliotek, ul. Neglinnaya 9,Moscow (Central Cellector forScientific Libraries)

3. Mezdunarodnaya Kniga, MoscowG-200

The first two are concerned with thesupply of Soviet publications while theMezdunarodnaya Kniga, which is one of theDepartments for Book Trade under theMinistry of Trade, deals with foreign publi-cations. The Mezdunarodnaya Kniga alsosupplies Soviet publications to foreignbuy e r s ,

Soviet Publications

The publishing trade is expected todepos it by law free of cost fifteen copies ofevery publication with Vsesoyuznaya Knizh-naya Palata. In addition, 150 copies aresupplied on payment to the TsentralniiKollektor Nauchnikh Bibliotek. These twoorganisations in turn distribute the copiesto the interested libraries and institutions.

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SOVIET INFORMATION SERVICES

.Foreign Publications

As stated earlier, the Mezdunarod-naya Kniga is the sole organisation whichundertakes supply of foreign books to Sovietlibraries. However greater ernphaeis isplaced on exchange for obtaining foreignpublications. It is said that more thansixty percent of the requirements of foreignpublications'is met by exchange relations.Many big libraries like GosudarstvennayaBiblioteka SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina (Lenin

TABLE

State Library of the USSR), PublichnoiBiblioteki imeni M. E. Saltykova-Shched-rina (Saltykova-Shchedrina State PublicLibrary), Biblioteka Akademii Nauk SSSR(Library of the Academy of Sciences of theUSSR), have departments exclusively forexchange work. They entertain exchangerelations directly with foreign institutions.

c-Fo r this purpose the exchange departmentsstock Soviet publications. The followingtable shows the extent of exchange pro-grarmnes of a few important Soviet libra-ries.

1. Vsesoyuznaya Patentno-tekhnicheskaya Biblioteka,Berezhkovskaya Naberezhnaya 24, Moscow(All Union Patent &, Technical Library)

Z. Tsentralnaya Nauchnaya SelskokhozyaistvennayaBiblioteka, Orlikov per 1/11, Moscow K-IZ(Central Scientific Agricultural Library)

3. Gosudarstvennaya Biblioteka SSSR imeniV.I. Lenina, ul. Kalinina 3, Moscow G-l~

4. Gosudarstvenii Universitet imeni M. V. Lomonosova,Lenin Hills, Moscow (Library of the LomonosovState Univ)

5. Gosudarstvennaya Tsentralnaya Nauchnaya MeditsinskayaBiblioteka, Sadovo-Kudrinskaya I, Moscow (State CentralScientific Medical Library)

6. Gosudarstvennaya Publichnaya Nauchno-TekhnicheskayaBiblioteka SSSR, Kuznetskii Most 12, Moa cow=Ll(State Public Scientiiic and Technical Library of the USSR)

7. Biblioteka Akademii Nauk SSSR, Birgevanya Liniya I,Leningrad V-164

8. Publichnoi Biblioteki imeni M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrina,Sadovaya ul , 18, Leningrad-69

Name of the Library

Exchange arrangements are mostlyentered into on the basis of title to titlewhile a few others take also into considera-tion cost of publications. However they arevery liberal in dealing with Soc.ialisticcountries and the newly developing coun-tries, and cost considerations do not alwaysmatter much in these cases. The criterionfor exchange of patent specifications is onyearly fund basis.

Vol 11 No 4 Dec 1964

Exchan es withNo. of institutions No. of

countries

36 36

650 59

3000 85

800 85

1074 69

1023 43

2433 91

2000 73

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SERVICES

Centralisation is the keynote in theorganisational pattern of the Soviet infor-mation services. The bibliographical ser-vices may be broadly classed as abstractingservices and indexing services. While theabstracting services are carried on by theInformation Institutions, the indexing ser-vices are taken care of by the Libraries.

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The services are undertaken Cor all levehof users, namely scientists, engineers,workers, students, and so on. The s'erv ic esare provided by a few Institutions andLibraries functioning at national level andhaving adequate resources. There is per-fect coordination among them in undertakingthe services. Duplication is avoided as faru possible. If at all there is any"duplica-tion like the one between the Patent Informa-tion Service and the Abstra<;ting services ofthe VINITl, it is intentional. There are yetno abstracting services for agriculturalsubjects. However plans are underway bythe Tsentralnaya Nauchnaya Selskokhozy-aistvennaya Biblioteka (Central ScientificAgricultural Library) to start a service.

USSR Academy of Sciences

Akademii Nauk SSSR is the supremebody for sciences in the USSR. • The USSRAcademy of Sciences is a complexly-orga-nised and widely-ramified institution directlysubordinate to the USSRCouncil of Minis-ters and responsible for the conduct ofbasic and applied research in the majorbranches of knowledge. The academy isgoverned by a board (Presidium) and con-sists of seven major departments. Eachdepartment consists of specialised insti-tutes, laboratories, museums, experimentalstations, and the like. Directly under thePresidium are various conc il s and com-missions with specific research, publishing,administrative functions and the principlelibraries of the Academy"(l).

VINITI, the larges t information centrein the Soviet Union functions under the con-trol of the Presidium of the USSRAcademyof Sciences. The centre started functioningin the year 1952 for providing centralisedservices to scientists and engineers. TheCentral Library of the USSRAcademy ofSciences in Leningrad is one of the oldest(founded in 1714) and biggest (collection of14 millions) libraries in the Soviet Union.The Library is connected to a chain of 180libraries of the Academy situated in variousparts of the country.

Abstracting Services

The abstracting services are orga-nised at the National level only. TheVlNITI publishes the well known abstractingperiodical, Referativnii zhurnal (RZ) which

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is now appearing in twenty fiv.e series onvarious branches of knowledge. It is con-sidered to be a mighty attempt in the worldtoday for a single agency to undertake sucha comprehensive abstracting service cover-ing all branches oC science. The mainseries are broken down further into 127sub-series. The number of series is beingincreased from time to time. It facilitatesa subscriber to obtain either the combinedvolume of the main series or the sub-seriesin the narrower subjects according to hisrequirements. In addition to above, thirtytwo separate parts on subjects not coveredby the main series are also published. Theseries excepting those mentioned below arepublished monthly.

24 nos/year-do--do-

1. Biologiya (Biology)2. Khimiya (Chemistry)3. Biologicheskaya khimiya

(Biologillal chemistry)4. Zhivotnovodstvo. Veterinariya -do-

(Animal husbandary.Veterinary Sc)

5. Obshchiye voprosy patologi(General problems oCpathology)

6. Pochvovedeniye (Soil science) -do-7. Rastenievodstvo (Crop -do-

husbandry)~. Farmakologiya. Toksikologiya -do-

(Pharmacology. Toxicology)9. Nauchnaya i tekhnicheskaya 6 nos/year

informatsiya (scientific Attechnical information

-do-

Out oC the twenty five main seriesas many as six series are devoted to Engi-neering subjects alone and th~y are publish-ed monthly. They are:

1. Avtomatika, telemekhanika i vychis-litelnaya tekhnika (Automation, com-putation At telemechanics)

2. Radiotekhnika i electrosvyaz (Radioengineering and electrical communi-cation)

3. Teploenergetika (Thermal powerengineering)

4. Tekhnologiya mashinostroeniya(Mechanical engineering)

5. Elektronika i yeyo primenenie (Elec-t ronies and its applications)

6. Elektrotekhnika i energetika (Electri-cal and power engineering)

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The RZ attempts to cover fully theworld scientific literature in as short timeas possible. It takes approximately sixmonths to one year to notify the lite raturein the RZ. About 18,000 periodical publi-cations and other publications in 61 langu-ages are obtained from 98 countries forinclusion in the RZ. Out of this about3, 000 publicatio~alone are from theSoviet Union. In addition, patent specifi-cations numbering about 220,000 are ob-tained every year through the VsesoyuznayaPatentno tekhnicheskaya Biblioteka (AllUnion Patent and Technical Library). Duringthe year 1962, RZ published 7,04,000abs tracts as compared to 1953, in whichyear the number of abstracts published wasonly 14,500 (2). The RZ covers all scienti-fic and technical subjects excepting Agri-culture, Building and Architecture andMedicine which are taken care of by theother Information Institutions specialisingin these subjects.

Organisation of RZ

The VINITI has at present a staff ofabout 3500 persons. About 1500 personsare engaged. in printing and publishing work.The others are distributed among the Pre-liminary Proces sing Departments, variousEditorial and Abstracting Departments,Translation Department, Automation De-partment and Methodology Department.The work in the edito rial de pa ntrrient s isdistributed according to language and sub-ject specialities. The work in the acquisi-tion department which is responsible forprocuring the literature is distributed accor-ding to countries. Or. receipt, the do cu-rne nt s are distributed according to languagespeciality to respective departments. Hencethe work relates mainly to classification.The classification is very broad and doesnot therefore involve assignment of anyclass number. In the editorial departmentthere are as many groups as the number ofseries brought out. Each editorial group isheaded by a highly qualified soientist. He isassisted by subject specialists. It is in thisdepartment that the actual work of abstract-ing, distribution of the documents to thepanel abstractors, etc. are carried out.There is a large number of subject specia-lists on the panel of abstractors for all theseries taken together. About eighty toninety percent of the documents are abs-tracted by the panel abstractors. Payment


to the panel abstractors is stated to bedecided on the basis of the quality of theabstracts. Documents are usually obtainedin more than one copy. The additionalcopies are utilised for panel abstractors.If one copy only is received, photocopiesare made and sent to the panel abstractors.Printed guides for abstracting work are alsoavailable for the benefit of fresh entrantsto the panel. The editors are expected t~ensure that the abstracts prepared by thepanel abstractors conform to the stand-ards prescribed. There is no fixed limitto the length of an a.jJstract. It largelydepends on the originality and value of thepublication and the space available finallyfor printing. The editors however modifyoccasionally the length of the abstracts tosuit space requirements. In case of docu-ments in Japanese, Chinese. and Scandi-navian languages, author abstracts aretranslated and are made use of. It mayperhaps be due to some temporary defici-ency in translation facilities in these langu-ages. The work involved at the variousstages in the production of the RZ is asfollows: --

Preliminary Processing

1. Acquisition of Soviet and Foreign publi-cations

2. Classification: Classing and markingdocuments for various editorial depart-ments

3. Bibliography: (i) standardising and typingof entries on cards

(ii) checking the typedentries

4. Photocopying of the documents for send-ing to the panel abstractors.

5. Sorting: (i) Clipping the cards to thecorresponding photocopiesof the documents

(ii) sorting the sets according tothe editorial departments·for which the documentsare already marked by theclas s ification group

(iii) pas sing on the documents tothe editorial departments

Editorial Departments1. Technical group

(i) receiving the processed docu-ments

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(ii) s endi ng the documents to thepanel abstractors

(iii) keeping record of flow of docu-ments from thi s group to panelabstractors and back

[iv) preparing sta.tements for pay-ments to the panel abs t r a.cto r s

(v) laying out the abstracts. alongwith the bibliographicai detailsfor printing

(vi) sending the laid Out abstractsfor printing

(vii) proof reading

2. Editors

(i) s el ec t'irrg the panel abstractor{ii) editing the abstracts. Sometimes

do also the abstracting work(iii) evaluating and deciding the

remuneration to be paid to panelabs tracto r s

(iv) general organisation of the edi-torial department

3. Printing and publ ish ing department

4. Indexing department

The problem of dealing with over-lapping areas is solved conveniently at theVINITI. At the classification stage, thesubject fields of the document having abearing on more than one subject are ma.rk-ed out according to the degree of relevenceand usefulness. The document is first sentto that editori.al de pa r trne nt of the subjectin which it has primary importance. Theabstract prepared in the first editorialdepartment is sent to the other editorialdepartments in the same order as markedout earlier and if it is desired to cover thedo curn ent in their series also, suitablechanges are made in the abstract to provideslant. The abstract is thus prepared onlyonce by th e panel abstractors and the sameabstract is made us e of by the differentseries. Apart from saving in the abstract-ing work, there is also economy in the workof acquisition, standardising the bibliogra-phical entries, translation, etc.

The inde xe-s are compiled by conven-tional methods. Very recently the VINITIhas started preparing the author index bymachine. The subj ec t index for one of theseries of the RZ namely Avtomatika i Radio·el ekt r on ika is now prepared by machine.Possibility of preparing the subject index

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by machine for other series of the RZ isalso being considered.

Other Abstracting Services

There are two other abstracting ser-vices in addition to RZ. They are Meditsin-skU Referativnii zh~al (Medical abstract-ing journal) and the abstracting journal forBuilding and Architecture.

Meditsinskii Referativnii zhurnij.l ispublished by the Vsesoyuznii Nauchno-Is-sledovatselskii Institut Meditsinskoi iMediko-Tekhnicheskoi Informatsii (AllUnion Institute for Medical and Medico-Technical Information), Moscow. It ispublished in thirteen series covering aboutthirty five areas in medicine. Every monthabout 4,000 to 5,000 entries either withabstracts or with annotations or with barebibliographical details are given. Theorganisation of work in this case differsfrom that of the RZ in two respects. Whilethe VINITI itself acquires the literature,the Medical Institute depends on the Gosu-darstvennaya Tsentralnaya NauchnayaMeditsinskaya Biblioteka (State CentralScientific Medical Library), Moscow. Thebibliographical details for most of the pub-lications are copied on cards from thecollection of the Medical Library. In caseswhere the documents are not procurable bythem from the Medical Library, the cardscontaining the bibliographical data are sentto the panel abstraEtors, who th.em s elve sarrange tv obtain the originals from theMedical Llbrary fer abstracting purposes.Unlike the VINITI where photocopies ofdocwnents are supplied to the abstractors,the p.rocedure followed by the Medical Insti-tute in expecttng the abs tractors to arrangethemselves the originals in most casesbrings about economy m respect of staffand material. The publication of tb eab s t r ac ts is also s ta ted to be expedited.The difference in practice in these twoor gan is at iorrs is probably for the reason thatthe VlNITI abstractors are s ca tte r ed farand wide extending even beyond Moscow,whereas the abstractors for the MedicalIns ti tut e are mainly concentrated in andaround Moscow.

The practice followed in abstractingservice for BuiLding and Architecturediffers also from the earlier two services.

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As is the case with the Medical Institute.the Tsentralnii Institut Nauchnoi Informatsiipo Stroitelstvy Arkhitekture Gosstroi SSSR(Central Institute for Scientific Informationin Building and Architecture). Moscow doesnot also acquire the publications itself. Thepublications are borrowed from the StateCommittee for Building. Department forForeign Relations. Here the articles arefirst translated fully by the staff t r ans l ato r sbefore preparing the abstracts. Eightypercent of the abstracts are made by thestaff abstractors themselves which is justthe reverse in the case of RZ. As thenumber of documents to beCovered is verymuch less in this service. they are in aposition to effect these changes in theroutine from that of the VINITI and theMedical Institute with economy and effici-ency.

Indexing Services

The indexing services are provided bythe libraries only at the local levels. Index-ing service is most popular of all the ser-vices provided by the libraries and it there-fore receives greater attention.

Individual libraries compile occasion-ally as well as regularly bibliographies onspecial subjects and lists of recommendedreading materials. The work of compilingspecial bibliographies is coordinated. forexample, Gosudarstvennaya BibliotekaSSSRimeni V. I. Lenina (Lenin StateLibrary) takes 'Care of Humanities; Tsen-tralnaya Nauchnaya SelskokhozyaistvennayaBiblioteka (Central Scientific AgriculturalLibrary) - Agriculture; GosudarstvenayaTsentralnaya Nauchnaya MeditsinskayaBiblioteka-Medicine; Biblioteka AkademiiNauk SSSR - Natural sciences; and so on.The Gosudarstvennaya Publichnaya Nauchno-Tekhnicheskaya Biblioteka SSSR (StatePublic Scientific and Technical Library ofthe USSR) brings out regularly current listsof books. periodicals, articles. industrialcatalogues. etc. For example. Novie knigipo tekhnikie dlya rabochikh is publishedfortnightly and lists recommended books ofinterest to the workers. Each issue covers10-15 current books and the list is pub-lished in six series covering differentindustries. These lists are found to be ofgreat value to engineers and workers intheir daily work.


National Bibliography

National bibliographies are compiledby the Vsesoyuznaya Knizhnaya Palata (AllUnion Book Chamber). Moscow. which isthe depository bylaw for all Soviet publi-cations. The main characteristic of theset up of Nat ion al Bibliography is that it isorganised for complete bibliographicalcontrol of every kind of macro as well asmicro documents such as books. periodi-cals. etc. The National Bibliography istherefore a diversified one according tokinds of documents. The entries in thebibliographies are given in classifiedsequence. Indexes are also provided. Theperiodicity of the bibliographies is alsoconveniently determined according to thekinds of documents, covered by them. Fewimportant series in the National Biblio-graphy are given here by way of illustra-tion.

The Knizhnaya Letopis lists Sovietbooks. It is published weekly with quarterlyauthor and subject indexes. It has annualcumulations also. The bibliography givesabout 1.000 entries every week and theentries are classified according to the UDC.

The Letopis periodicheskikh izdaniiis an annual National Bibliography listingSoviet newspapers and periodicals. It ispublished in two parts. the first part beingdevoted to the Soviet newspapers and per-iodicals. which are new. renamed or ceasedpublication. while the second part listsvarious serials on collections of scientificworks, scientific notes. etc. The annualbibliography is cumulated every five years.A cumulated volume for 1917-1949 for theSoviet periodicals (excepting the newspapers)has been published. The work of preparinga separate edition for the newspaperscovering the years 1917-1960 is in progressand it is expected to be completed in theyear 1967.

The Letopis zhurnalnikh statei listsarticles from Soviet periodicals and ispublished weekly with author index forevery issue and geographical index in everyquarter.

The Letopis gazetnikh statei is pub-lished monthly which covers articles fromthe central newspapers, the newspapersfrom Moscow, Leningrad and Republics of

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the Soviet Union. Every issue contamsauthor and geographical index.

There are a few more bibliographiescompiled at the National level, such asKartograficheskaya letopis (annual) formaps, Letopis muzikalnoi literaturi (quar-terly) for music, Letopis retsenzii (quar-terly) covers reviews on Soviet books ap-peared in different sources, and so on.

The All Union Book Chamber alsopublishes annually Bibliografiya Sovetskoibibliografii which is the list of Soviet biblio-gl:aphies.

PATENTS INFORMATION

Dissemination of patents informationis the main activity of the Tsentralnii Nau-chno Issledovatelskii Institut PatentnoiInformatskii i Tekhniko -ekonomicheskikhIssledovanii (Central Scientific ResearchInstitute for Patent Information and Techno-economic Research), Moscow. The Insti-tute gets cooperation from the VsesoyuznayaPatentno-tekhnicheskaya Biblioteka (AllUnion Patent and Technical Library), Mos-cow which has the world collection ofpatents. About 250,000 foreign patentsfrom about thirty six countries are receivedannually by this Library. A fortnightly bul-letin, Bulletin isobretenii i towarnikhznanov (Bulletin for patents and trade marks)covers Soviet patents and trade marks.About ten thousand patents are listed in thebulletin in a year. The Institute providesalso card service for patents information.

Patent reviews on specific subjectsare also prepared by the Institute. About100 reviews are published every year. Thereviews usually contain some of the majoraspects of investigations with illustrations.About 30-40 patents are referred by way ofexamples and at the end list of patents con-sulted is given. In addition, statisticalfigures by year, country, etc. on the pa-tents referred are given. The reviews areprepared by subject specialists on the staffof the Institute.

CURRENT AWARENESS

Considerable importance is given tokeep the scientists, the engineers and theworkers informed in the quickest possibletime of the current literature being pub-lished on their subjects. This is achieved

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by the Express Information Service (EI) inthe first instance. There are also otherservices providing liaison between researchand industries.

Expres s Information

The several information tns titutionsin the Soviet Union in addition to other ser-vices provided by them bring out expressinformation services. The express infor-mation services are not identical at allthes e institutions and there are variations.

The VINITl's EI was started in 1955when sixteen series~ere published. Thenumber of series increased in 1963 to sixtyone and in the year 1964 it was published insixty seven series. The number of entriesin 1955 was about 4,000 and in 1962 thenumber of entries was about 20,000. (2).Each series of the EI is published fortyeight times in a year. The time lag inreporting in the EI is about two months onlywhereas in the RZ it is between six monthsto one year. The selection of documentsfor inclusion in this service is done byspecialists in narrow disciplines and it is.on the basis of immediate requirements ofthe research work in progress in the coun-try. The EI covers only foreign documents.Detailed abstracts and sometimes almostcomplete articles are incorporated into thisservice. The abstracting work is done byoutside specialists in the stipulated time ofseven to ten days.

The Information Institute of Medicineissues the EI in the form of cards givingonly bare bibliogr.aphical details of the ~ocu-ments. On the other hand the EI for Build-ing and Architecture is published in twoparts - the first part devoted to the accountof local experts on their experience at horneand abroad and the second part devoted toselected foreign literature. The CentralScientific Agricultural Library publishes afortnightly EI in two parts, namely Sovietagriculture and F'o r eign agriculture.

Liaison Between Research and Industry

The Soviet Union is divided intotwenty industrial regions. Each region hasa Council of National Economy (Sovnarkhoz)which acts as the coordinating body forlooking after industrial progress of the

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region. The responsibility for the dissemi-nation of scientific information is sharedjointly by the Regional Councils, DomNauchno-tekhnicheskoi Propagandii (Centresfor Scientific and Technical Dis semination),the State Technical and Scientific Library ofthe USSR, and various documentation de--pa r trnerrte and libraries attached to indus-tries. There are about 100 Centres forScientific and Technical Dissemination inthe 20 industrial regions, the oldest beinglocated at Leningrad. The State Technicaland Scientific Library takes into consider-ation the overall national interest in all itsbibliographical activities. This Library isconnected to a chain of smaller librariesoperating at various levels and therebyensures flow of information to all mediumand small industries which do not have in-formation departments of their own. How-ever the Documentation Departments andLibr;lries attached to big industries couldthemselves serve their clientele by issuingout bibliographies on subjects of immediateconcern to their own work. These bigindustries share among themselves withoutreservation the information collected bythem.

The Centres for Scientific and Techni-cal Dissemination organise their informa-tion services as below:

(i) Seminars through which workersshare their experience. The subjectsfor the discussion are chosen in con-sultation with the specialists.

(ii) Exhibitions for education and intro-duction for new products (or newinventions) etc.

(iii) Publicity on new products throughplacards, leaflets, etc. The inven-tors are requested to write shortaccount with illustrations on theirachievements and it is given widepublicity to other industries of thesimilar nature.

(iv) Very important details, designs anddrawings, concerning a new inventionare reproduced and circulated tosimilar enterprises.

CLASSIFICATION

The Soviet libraries were followingtill recently the so-called Soviet Deweyclassification scheme which is now being


abandoned. A new Soviet classificationscheme which is on the lines of the Uni-versal Decimal Classification (UDC) isunder introduction. In this scheme know-ledge is divided according to Marxist-Leninist principles. In the libraries docu-ments are not arranged on the shelvesfollowing this scheme and the classifiedapproach is provided only through the cata-logue.

For the information services the UDCis being followed. It is said that there areeven statutory obligations to follow thisscheme. The UDChas been translated intothe Russian language. However the infor-mation services just give the UDC numbersagainst each entry without following thesequence.

TRANSLATION SERVICES

The Soviet scientists have also toovercome the language barrier as majorpart of the scientific literature is being inlanguages unfamiliar to them. They, how-ever, are very much interested to be keptwell informed of the scientific progressbeing made elsewhere. To a large extentthe RZ is expected to meet this need. Thetranslation work in RZ is carried on effici-ently by employing scientists cum languagespecialists for abstracting work. As faras possible detailed abstracts with all im-portant data are given so as to minimise theneed for going through the originals. Iftranslations of full articles are needed fordetailed study, facilities are available atalmost all the Information Institutions.

Translation servi~e is not completelycentralised. There is however coordina.tionin translation services among all the Infor-mation Institutes for avoiding duplication.Translation services are offered by Informa-tion Institutes on the subjects of their speci-ality only. For example, the InformationInstitute for Building and Architecturetranslates cover to cover documents on thesubjects of their interest and publishesabstracts. The translations are preservedfor future use. Similarly the Medical Insti-tute and the State Central AgriculturalLibrary take up translations in their res-pective subjects. Only VINITI's translationbureau undertakes translation work on anysubject. The bureau consists of 42 staffeditors knowing English, French, German,Eastern languages, etc. and over 3000 out-

103

side translators and editors. Dependingupon the length of the document, the trans-lation, including editing and typing work,takes from 10 days to 3 months. Thecharges for a translation are calculated onthe basis of a unit, called' Printed page' ,each of which consists of 40,000 printedmarks. The rates of the charges are asstated below:

Translation intoRussian 60 Rub/printed page

Translation intoforeign language 80 Rub/printed page

Copy of the transla-tion (both intoRussian andForeign languages) 7 Rub/printed page

Outside translators are paid at the rate of60 Rub/printed page depending on the qua-lity of the work. The bureau issues amonthly catalogue of translations done bythem. The catalogue lists about 800 trans-lations every month.

It is stipulated by law that copies ofall the translations done anywhere in theSoviet Union should be deposited centrallyat the State Public Scientific and TechnicalLibrary. Thus all the translations done inthe USSR are collected together and thishelps to eliTninate duplication in translationeffort. It also facilitates in providingquickly copies of translations already done.The Library brings out a fortnightly list,namely Spisok perevedov which notifiestranslations deposited during that period.

AUTOMATION

On the use of machines for informa-tion work a beginning has been made re-cently. They are alive to the potentialityof machines in information work and ex-periments are being carried on in thisdirection. The V1NITl's Department forthe Mechanisation of Information Processes

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and Information Institute for Patents are atpresent engaged in mechanical translationwork.

The VINITI has developed new docu-ment copying equipments, namely, thermo-copier, electrophoto graphy, electrophot,and electronic copying machine (EKA-II).

Another device developed by theVINITI is on the quick retrieval of informa-tion on microfilm. This is known as'POISK' in which thirty five mm microfilmof 250 meters length containing about10, 000 pages can be fed. By giving signalsthe device can bring before the reader in amatter of a few seconds any required por-tion of the document. Special arrangementsin the same device are also made for xero-graphic copying of any desired portion. Thedepartment is also engaging itself in ma-chine indexing.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my grateful thanksto Padma Shri B.S. Kesavan, Director,Insdoc for giving me this valuable opportu-nity to visit the USSR. I am also thankfulto Prof. A. I. Mikhailov, Director VINITIand his staff; to the Academy of Sciences ofthe USSR; to the Directors and staff of allthe organisations I visited for giving allpossible facilities in making my visit veryuseful.

REFERENCE

1. Horecky, Paul L: Libraries and biblio-graphic centres in the Soviet Union(Slavic and East European S~ries,Vol. 16). Indiana University Publi-cation. Washington, Council ofLibrary Resources, Inc , , 1959.page 133.

2. Brochure entitled, lnstitut Nauchnoilnformatsii Akademii Nauk SSSR,Moskva. page 15.

Ann Lib Sci Doc