Collections

Digital library is a collection, containing originally digital documents as well as digital copies of rarities in demand stocked by RSL or received from external sources. By 2009 the digital stock volumed up to 400 thousand documents and is continuously growing.

The whole stock of the library is available in reading rooms in compliance with Part IV of The Civil Code of RF. To view open resources, please, use Acrobat Reader... read more

The Central Main Collection has more than 29 million units of storage: books, journals, serial editions, documents for administrative use only. It is a basic collection in the subsystem of the main document funds of RSL. There are more than 200 private book collections of special value belonging to the national figures of science, culture, education, eminent bibliophiles and collectors from Russia... read more

Central Reference and Bibliographical Collection has more than 300 thousand units. It’s documents content is universal. It contains a large collection of abstracts, bibliographic and reference books in Russian language, languages of the peoples of Russia and foreign languages (except Eastern ones). The collection has a great number of retrospective bibliographical guides, dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference books, guidebooks... read more

The Central Auxiliary Collection gives readers quick open access to the most popular editions in Russian, published by the major publishers of Moscow and St. Petersburg. This fund has a massive collection of scientific, reference and training literature. Apart from the books it includes magazines, brochures and newspapers... read more

Collection of Manuscripts is a versatile collection of written and graphic manuscripts in various languages, including ancient Russian, ancient Greek and Latin. It contains manuscripts, archival collections and funds, private (family, ancestral) archives. Documents, the earliest of which date to the VI century AD, are made on paper, parchment, and other specific materials... read more

There are more than 300 thousand units in the Collection of Rare and Valuable Books. It consists of printed publications in Russian and other languages that meet such social and value parameters as uniqueness, prioritization, memorial and collectable value. The content of the collection documents is universal... read more

The Dissertation Collection includes domestic doctoral and master’s theses in all areas of knowledge except medicine and pharmacy. The collection contains author’s copies of dissertations from 1951 to 2010, as well as microforms of theses produced instead of the originals from the 1940—1950 period. The collection is preserved as part of the cultural heritage of Russia... read more

The Newspaper Collection includes more than 670 thousand items and represents one of the largest collections in Russia and the former Soviet Union. It includes domestic and foreign newspapers dating back from the XVIII century. The most valuable part of the collection are pre-revolutionary Russian newspapers and publications of the early years of Soviet power... read more

Collection of the military literature has more than 614,000 units. It consists of printed and digital publications in Russian and foreign languages. There are priceless documents of wartime — newspapers from the front line, posters and flyers, texts for which had been written by the classics of Soviet literature Ilya Erenburg, Sergei Mikhalkov, Samuil Marshak, Mikhail Isakovsky... read more

The Collection of Literature in the languages of Asia and Africa includes domestic and foreign publications which have a great importance from a scientific and practical point of view. Written in 224 languages, they represent an exceptional diversity of topics, genres and types of design. The collection has the most full representation of such sections as social and political sciences and humanities. It consists of books, journals, ongoing publications, newspapers and voice recordings... read more

Thе collection is formed in order to quickly provide readers with current periodicals. Duplicates of domestic periodicals are open for public use. The collection includes domestic and foreign magazines, as well as the most asked for central and Moscow newspapers in Russian. After specified period magazines are moved into the Central main collection for permanent storage... read more

The Collection of Visual Art Publications, numbering about 1.5 million copies, is the richest in Russia. This unique collection presents posters and prints, engravings and popular prints, art reproductions and postcards, photographs and graphics. The collection introduces personal collections of famous collectors which include portraits of a huge culturogical value, bookplates and works of applied graphic art... read more

The Collection of Cartographic Publications is one of the world’s largest and one of three available in Russia. This specialized collection includes atlases, maps, plans, schematic maps and globes and provides a wealth of material on topics of this kind, publications and different types of presentation of cartographic information. Its volume is about 250 thousand copies... read more

The Collection of Music Publications and Audio Records (over 400 thousand units) — one of the largest collections representing all of the most significant pieces in the world repertoire, ranging from the XVI century. The collection has both the original documents and copies. It also includes documents in a digital media format. The collection of audio records consists of shellac and vinyl records, cassette tapes of domestic producers, CD and DVD... read more

The Collection of Public State and Regulatory Publications is a specialized collection of official documents and publications of international organizations, bodies of state authority and administration of the Russian Federation and certain foreign countries, the official regulatory and production documents, publications of Rosstat. The total amount of the collection is more than 2 million items presented in the paper and digital form, as well as other micromedia... read more

The RSL Collection of Russian Literature Abroad (more than 700 thousand units) presents works by authors of all waves of emigration. The most valuable of its components is the collection of newspapers. Some were published in lands occupied by the White Army during the Civil war, while others — in the occupied territories of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. A prominent part in the collection is occupied by the works of figures of the domestic human rights movement... read more

The collection of digital network remote resources consists of more then 180 thousand storage units. It is composed of resources from other organizations, hosted on remote servers, to which the library draws a permanent or temporary access. The content of the collection’s documents is universal... read more

Audiovisial and digital document Collection (CD and DVD) — one of the newest collections of documents of the RSL. It has more than 8,000 items of various types and purposes. It includes text, audio and multimedia documents that are original editions or digital analogues of printed publications. The content of the collection is universal... read more

The Collection of Literature on Library Science, Bibliography and Book Studies is the world’s largest specialized collection of such publications. It is composed of language dictionaries, encyclopaedias, reference books of a general nature and literature on related disciplines. The collection holds 170 thousand documents which cover the period from the XVIII century to the present. In a separate collection there are selected publications of the Russian State Library... read more

The Collection of Working Copies of Microforms totals about 3 million units of storage. It consists of microform publications in Russian and foreign languages. There are partially represented newspapers and microforms of dissertations, as well as publications that do not have paper equivalents, but have such qualities as uniqueness, high value and high demand... read more

The Collection of Domestic Book Exchange, as a part of the subsystem of RSL exchange funds, has more than 60 thousand units. Those are non-core and doublet documents which are excluded from the mane funds — books, pamphlets and periodicals in Russian and foreign languages. The collection is intended for redistribution as gifts, equivalent exchange and implementation... read more

The collection of unpublished documents and deposited scientific studies on art and culture has more than 15 thousand units of storage. It is composed of deposited scientific studies and unpublished documents — reviews, essays, references, bibliographies, methodological, methodical and bibliographical materials, scripts for mass events and festivals, conferences and meetings materials. These documents are of important industry-wide significance... read more