THE EVOLUTION OF LIBRARIANSHIP IN RUSSIA - THE LIBRARIANS OF THE IMPERIAL-PUBLIC-LIBRARY, 1808-1868

Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, Russian librarians were typically confined to the roles of antiquarian and curator, and it wa s only with the founding of the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersb urg (later the M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library, and rena med the Russian National Library in 1992) that the domain of the profe ssion was enlarged. Created from the 300,000-volume Zaluski collection confiscated from the Poles in 1795, the new Russian national library posed unprecedented problems of organization and retrieval, and it log ically became the locus of development of the library profession. Over the course of the next seven decades, the librarians of the Public Li brary elaborated a full complement of operating procedures and a worki ng philosophy of librarianship based on principles of collegial organi zation, autonomy in the practice of the profession, service to society , and universal access.