The Origin of Soviet Education for Librarianship: The Role of 3 Women

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The Origin of Soviet Education for Librarianship
The Role of 3 Women

• Dr. John V. Richardson Jr.
• JELIS 41 (Spring 2000) 106-128

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Background

• ALISE Teaching Fellow, 1996 (funding from IREX
  and H.W. Wilson Foundation) UCLA ASCOR Grant,
  1997 ALISE Research Grant, 1998 to Moscow and
  St. Petersburg
• Education for Library and Information Science in
  Russia A Case Study of the St. Petersburg State
  Academy of Culture, Journal of Education for
  Library and Information Science 39 (Winter 1998)
  14-27.

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Source Materials

• US (UCLA and Simmons College archives)
• RUSSIA (SPSAC, National Library of Russia, and
  MGIK)
• Biographical Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
• Scholarly Monographs in English
• Russian Professional Journals
• Russian Conference Proceedings and Theses
• Local Russian Newspapers

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Krupskaya (1869-1939)

• Born in St. Petersburg wanted to be a school
  teacher
• Met Lenin in 1894 at St. Petersburg Union for
  the Emancipation of the Working Class
• Arrested in 1896 exiled in 1898 to Ufa
• Lived abroad until 1917

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Early Krupskaya Photo
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Krupskayas Life Work

• Focus on popular education
• Influenced by Pestalozzis intellectual-moral-phys
  ical education
• Deputy in the Russian Ministry of Education
• On Organizing Librarianship (1918)
• Died on her birthday in 1939

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Khavkina (1871-1949)

• Born in Ukraine
• Served as the Librarian of her hometown
• Wrote extensively on librarianship including a
  work entitled The Book and the Library and a
  polyglot dictionary
• Initiated library courses in Shanyavskiy Peoples
  University in Moscow

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Khavkinas Lifework

• Traveled widely, arguing for open access to
  libraries taught classification, methods of work
  with readers, subject cataloging
• Headed the Office of Librarianship in Moscow,
  then the Institute of Librarianship hired and
  rehired--Kadet tendencies
• Died in 1949 in Moscow

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Derman (1882-1954)

• Born in Riga, later Latvia
• Graduated with honors, moved to Moscow to avoid
  being arrested married there
• Arrested for revolutionary activities, expelled
  studied at Simmons College, 1916-1917
• Headed the two foremost libraries upon her return

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Dermans Lifework

• Organized the first all-Russian Library Congress,
  talked on the role of centralized cataloging
  headed the Moscow Library Institute
• Imprisoned in 1939 for counter revolutionary
  activities in Vorkuta
• Died in 1955 later she was rehabilitated

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Ideological Assumptions

• Need to educate the masses
• fairy tales, semi-literate, superstitions
• Lenins Cultural Revolution
• public education, socialist literature,
  supporting and popularizing science,
  re-education, strengthening the atheistic world
  view, and reconstructing mores
• Give every village important books

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Ideological Assumptions II

• "Without a book, without a library, with-out the
  skillful use of books there can be no cultural
  revolution for the reader.
• -- N. K. Krupskaya

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State of Public Education

• 73 of population was illiterate (1897 Census)
• Location only 25 literate in rural areas 75
  in urban areas (Rashin)
• Gender Women were illiterate (14 of the 17
  million population)

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Systemic Solution

• Preparatory system of residential homes and
  kindergartens
• free, equal, compulsory, unified education from 7
  to 17 years old
• development of technicums for young adults after
  age 17

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Literacy and Reading

• In 1919, all of Russia was learning to read
  (Reed)
• 1926 Odessa survey fiction, history, political
  and economic topics, hygiene, geography and art
• American literature (Jack London and Sinclair
  Lewis), British authors, then French, and own
  indigenous literature

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Role of Librarians

• In 1909, 368 librarians responded
• typical library of 200-400 volumes
• some government assistance
• most had no new books since 1907
• average hours 6 to 12 per day
• 38 of the librarians worked for free

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Soviet Libraries

• In comparative survey in 1924-25
• fewer libraries in villages
• numbers increased in towns
• libraries became part of the political process
• proper books and literature no objective book
  selection
• role of childrens librarian
• laboratory in every library (goal)

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Higher Education

• Proto-education
• professional societies, learned journals, and a
  series of informal courses
• Russian Bibliological Societys library section
  became the Society of Librarianship (1908)
• Bibliotekar (1910)
• First All-Russian Library Congress (1911)

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St. Petersburg Moscow

• St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute offered
  optional book and library science courses (called
  theoretical librarianship), 1912
• A.M. Belov (Rules for Systematic Cataloging)
• Shanyavskiy Peoples University offered
  short-term librarianship courses, 1912
• Khavkina and 8 other faculty members

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An Ideal System

• A Library Seminary (Krupskaya, 1918)
• Two year program
• First year
• read 20-30 books
• attend evening courses
• written exam on theoretical questions
• Second year
• work in library
• oral report

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Leningrad Institute of Culture

• Institute of Extra-Scholastic Education (1918)
• wanted to recruit working class students
• but these students could not afford the time
• Goal
• instructors and specialists
• solve problems
• inform workers about self-education

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Criticisms of Education

• Not organized in the way it should be
• Need to be a propagandistbe a politically
  conscious Marxist (Krupskaya)
• Too many courses on bibliography and inadequate
  textbooks (Anonymous author)

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Conclusions

• Three women with extraordinary vision and
  influence due to their travels abroad and
  experience with other systems
• Literacy rapidly increased, especially among
  women fiction, popular
• Synchronicity
• Local thinking vs. global perspective

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More Conclusions

• Striking parallels between US and Russia
• quality of instruction, social science method,
  and discussions of worthwhile research
• Differences
• Open to the working class, role of the public
  librarian, especially the childrens librarian as
  pivotal in the political process. Urban
  libraries developed at the expense of rural ones.

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Even More Conclusions

• Reading and its fundamental importance
• quality of books read, open access to literature
  (Khavkina) and subject cataloging (Derman)

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Want to Know More?

• "The Origin of Soviet Education for
  Librarianship The Role of Nadezhda Krupskaya
  (1869-1939), Lyubov Borisovna Khavkina-Hamburger
  (1871-1949) and Genrietta K. Abele-Derman
  (1882-1954)." Journal of Education for Library
  and Information Science 41 (Spring 2000)
  106-128.