Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts

Head: Kirill A. Konev
Phone: (+73822) 78-51-09
E-mail: ork@lib.tsu.ru, kk.tsu@yandex.ru

Location: The Old Building, Rooms 2 and 25

How to get the documents from the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts

The Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts holds rare and especially valuable editions, manuscripts, archival documents, and graphic materials which have scientific, historical and cultural significance. The Department also has a permanent exhibition known as the Book Museum, which provides an opportunity to see the artifacts of book culture stored in the library.

The history of the Department is inextricably linked with the history of the establishment and development of the library by the University’s founder Vasily M. Florinskiy. Count Stroganov's family library, which included 22,000 books, was the first part of the library stocks brought from St. Petersburg in 1880. Since there were many rare books in this collection, V. M. Florinskiy decided to preserve it as a whole but to place the especially valuable copies (about 500) in special showcases. Thus, this collection became a core for the future Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts.

In 1914, the library received its own building, which was designed by the famed Siberian architect A.D. Kryachkov. There was a special room equipped with showcases, which were used for exhibition of rare books. In March 1920, by the decision of the Faculty of History and Philology, the University established the Cabinet of Graphic Arts under the supervision of Professor B.L. Bogaevskiy. The goal of this Cabinet was "...to attract attention to a book as an artifact of cultural heritage of different countries and ages". In this Cabinet, there were mainly some graphic works and albums with reproduced engravings from the Stroganov's collection. In 1930, the Cabinet was closed. The reason for this was the activity of the Shock Brigade of the Council of the People’s Commissars that confiscated 2,093 rare books, mostly from the Stroganov’s collection, for export needs.

In 1938, the library started to restore a number of personal libraries having great scientific and cultural significance. These included the libraries of the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, professor censor A.V. Nikitenko, Irkutsk merchant A.A. Belogolovyi and others. Rare books and manuscripts, Count Stroganov's family collection, and a number of restored personal libraries were allocated on the 5th floor of the book depository. This place was meant to be used as a basis for future permanent exhibition showing library’s treasures. In 1939, the library top management sent a request letter to the People's Commissariat for Education asking to establish a position of the Head of the Book Museum. The management justified the importance of this position, but it didn’t work out due to a difficult political and economic situation of that time.

The Department, as an independent structural subdivision of the library, was established in 1945. Soon after, a permanent exhibition on the history of the book was prepared and opened. Chronologically, the collection materials range from the 12th to the 21st century. Throughout the history of the Department, it has amassed a unique stock of over 100,000 rare books. The collection covers a wide range of topics. There are the documents in Russian, in different European languages (French, German, English, Latin, Greek, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Polish and others) and in some Eastern languages (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and others). The collection includes manuscripts and printed books, magazines, newspapers, albums, leaflets, posters, postcards, photos, maps, music notes, paintings, prints, archival materials, etc.

Activities

• Scientifically justified development and management of the Department collection
• Ensuring safety of the documents
• Research and methodological activities
• Support of university’s educational activity
• Exhibitions and library tours

Structure of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts:

• Section of storage
• Section of research and exhibition

The stock of the Department consists of:

• The stock of manuscripts and archival documents
• The stock of thematic and chronological collections, and book collections:
    - Personal book collections
    - Thematic and chronological collections
• Reference collection