History of the Slavic Collection
The Slavic Collection began in 1963 as part of an initiative
to support a new national resource center for the study
of Russian and Eastern Europe at the University of Virginia.
The Center for Russian and East European Studies was subsequently
established in 1966 and became an annual source of funding
for the Slavic Collection. The Collection covered all disciplines
involved in the study of Russia and Eastern Europe, including
history, politics, law, economics, sociology, literature,
linguistics, fine arts, and music.
In the first few decades of its existence, the Slavic Collection
grew from numerous sources, including: the retention of
Library of Congress Slavic duplicates; blanket order programs
through Les Livres Etrangers and Kubon & Sagner; exchange
relationships with libraries in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia; the Yugoslav
PL-480 program (1967-1972); and the Polish PL-480 Program
(1973-1977). The Slavic Collection developed particular
strengths in Russian and Soviet history, Russian literature,
Slavic linguistics, and Russian music.
In 1981, Slavic cataloging was integrated into Cataloging
Services. The procedure for curating collections also eventually
changed. In the 1990s, subject specialists assumed the task
of selecting materials to support the study of Russia and
Eastern Europe in individual disciplines. The Slavic specialist
remained the selector of materials for Slavic languages
and literatures, but other subject librarians in the areas
of history, politics, fine arts and music assumed responsibility
for collection of materials in their disciplinary areas.
The subject librarian for history is George Crafts (gtc@virginia.edu)
and the subject librarian for politics is Gary Treadway
(grt8r@virginia.edu). The library maintains a list of all
subject librarians.
The core language and literature materials of the Slavic
Collection are located in Alderman Library. Additional materials
of the interdisciplinary Slavic Collection are housed in
Clemons Library, Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library, McIntire
Department of Art Visual Resources Collection, the Music
Library, and the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections
Library.
fax: 434.924.1431