vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #159 / Social life / Reading article...

Just finished your last book? Desperate for something new to read in English? Well, the International Room of the Gorky Library on Nekrasovskaya Street operates a lending service, with more than 5,000 fiction, non-fiction and reference books in English, German and Japanese.

Meletina Filippova, the head of the International Room, says foreign residents can borrow books at a nominal cost if their Russian host organization submits a written request to the library, including its address and phone number.

From the summer, moreover, the Svetlanskaya Street branch of the library will reopen, offering 1,500 English fiction titles for loan. There, said Filippova, the lending procedure is even easier. Readers just need to show their passports to be issued with a library card.

The bulk of the international collection consists of donations: The American Consulate has given books twice. Prof. Patricia Polansky from the University of Hawaii regularly sends books, mainly about Russian history. Recently she sent “The Course of Russian History” by Melvin C. Wren, “Khruschev: Making a Dictator” by George Paloczi-Horvath and “Twenty Letters to a Friend” by Svetlana Aliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter. The Library of the U.S. Congress is due to send a shipment of books soon.

Meanwhile, those seeking books on the arts and classical literature can find “History of American Drama”; “Best American Short Stories of 1988”; fiction by John Updike, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner; and other works. There are numerous picture books: “Women Artists”, “The National Museum of American History” and “American Art” to name just a few.

Back issues of several magazines — Newsweek, Scientific American and Native Peoples, for example — are passed on by the library of the American Consulate.

The largest portion of the library’s foreign collection is German. The 4,100-volume section includes educational materials, language courses and audio and video cassettes. The library subscribes to 35 magazines and five major newspapers, and there are already 1998 issues. These donations are part of a program launched three years ago by the Goethe Institute in Munich. The program involves six cities in Russia, including Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.

Japanese books usually come from sister prefectures. In the display of new arrivals are colorful albums about Toyama prefecture, books about sports, manuals on how to grow tulips, a volume dedicated to rice, and books about the parent-child relationship.

Taking posession, even of donated books, is no easy matter for the library. Philippova complains that besides a shortage of money, the biggest problem for the library is clearing customs. Duties are payable, for example, even for books which arrive as charity from a partner-library in Japan.

“We have no problems when books are sent by mail,” she explained. “But customs is the biggest enemy of culture.”

The Gorky Library’s International Room is at 59 Nekrasovskaya Street. The cost of borrowing is 2 rubles (30 cents) for single use and 10 rubles ($1.60) for a one-year service. Hours are noon to 5:30 p.m. daily, except Fridays and Sundays.