Library at iHMC rAS (the RAS library's division at IHMC)

The library of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of Russian Academy (IHMC) of Sciences (Russian Academy of Sciences Library subdivision) is the biggest archaeological library in Russia and the former USSR republics and is among the biggest in the world. Founded in 1859 as the Russian Imperial Archaeological Commission Library it has retained its authority of the country's main archaeological library. By January 1st, 2003 about 209797 books had been registered and stocked, including 139932 publications in russian and 109567 in foreign languages. Its collection includes 101845 monographs and miscelanea and 107657 periodicals on archaeology from the Stone Age to the Late Middle Ages, history of Ancient and Old Russia and foreign countries, art history, architecture, ethnography, paleoanthropology, paleozoology, paleobotanics, quaternary geology, epigraphy, numismatics, application of modern scientific methods in archaeology as well as cultural geography, anthropology, ancient and medieval history, linguistic. Around 2500 new books are added to the library stock supplied from the Library of Russian Academy of Sciences, subscription for periodicals or donated by scientific organizations and scientists. Thematic books exhibitions and new book entries are exhibited on a regular basis.

References are organized in card catalogues of home and foreign monographs and collected papers as well as card catalogues of home and foreign periodicals based on the unique scheme developed by our leading librarians and scientific fellows in the 30-s of the XX c. The catalogues include home and foreign monographs, articles from collected papers and periodicals. In addition there is a card catalogue of IHMC fellows publications and "Rossica" card catalogue with works of home archaeologists published abroad and works of foreign scientists relevant to russian archaeology. Among the library’s long time projects is one to published a series of Bibliographic indexes of soviet archaeological literature (1918-1987), 9 volumes of which have been already published.

Free library access is provided for both archaeologists, scholars of other allied sciences and students nation-wide and from foreign countries. Unfortunately card catalogues available greatly limit information access and library service. The importance of the Internet as the way of communication and knowledge distribution has become evident. Creation of an electronic system and free remote access would play a big role to introduce the library's materials to the scientific community. Electronic publication index has been being created since 1998 (in russian).

Main publications

"Soviet archaeological literature: Bibiliographic index. 1918-1987" 10 volumes. Leningrad, St-Petersburg. 1957-1999 (in russian)

Director:

Lev Vseviov

Contact information:

191186 Russia. St.-Petersburg, Dvortsovaya nab., 18. Tel. +7 (812) 571-50-92; fax +7 (812) 571-62-71; e-mail: biblIIMK@mail.ru, biblio@archeo.ru