Recognition award for the Slavonic Library
Each year, the Finnish-Russian Society's University of Helsinki Department awards an enthusiasm prize named for Jakov Grot to a university that has meritoriously and open-mindedly promoted an awareness and use of the Russian language. In 2004 the prize was awarded to Slavica, the University of Helsinki's Slavonic Library, in connection with the university's opening carnival.
Also being celebrated at the same time is the founding of the "Society of the Slavonic Library's Friends and Supporters" (in Russian "Mezhdunarodnoe soobshtshestvo druzei i ljubitelei Slavjanskoi biblioteki"). Its members are international as well as domestic users - among them a few hundred professors of Russian history, culture and literature from Russia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the UK, Germany, France, Italy Switzerland, Israel, the USA and Japan - who have utilised the Slavonic Library's collections in their research. Each year many of them - just as easily American researchers as well as their Russian counterparts - study the library's collections for even months at a time.
What makes the Slavonic Library unique in the world is its approximately 110,000-volume collection of so-called legal deposit copies. Since 1828 the Helsinki University Library has had the right to receive a copy of every book or magazine published in Russia for its collections. Since Independence the collections have expanded considerably; during the past several years the library has obtained valuable supplementary materials financed with old debts incurred by the former USSR: about 7,000-8,000 rolls of microfilm, 2,500 books, 600 maps, over 60,000 pages of digitised materials as well as user rights for the electronic Integrum Library. Slavica's popularity among international Russia researchers is assured by the collections' ease of use as well as the library staff's friendly and knowledgeable service and enthusiasm.
Further information about the Slavonic Library¿s collections:
Further information about the Enthusiast Prize traditions:
Contact information:
Irma Reijonen irma.reijonen@helsinki.fi
Tel. 09-191 44003, 050-561 6152.
Krista Berglund krista.berglund@helsinki.fi
Tel. 09-191 247 43, 041-4555 927.
(Finnish-Russian Society's University of Helsinki Department)
