On the art critic M. I. Fabrikant’s report “The second five-year plan of scientific libraries for arts” (on the history of Soviet librarianship in the 1930s)

Abstract

The personal archive of the art critic M. I. Fabricant (1887–1966), now in the collection of the Scientific Library of Lomonosov Moscow State University, comprises many documents in the book science, arts bibliography, and Soviet-era library science. The author publishes the exegetical text of the two draft versions of the report by M. I. Fabricant “The second five-year plan of scientific libraries for arts”. The dating of this document, presumably written shortly before June 19, 1932, is substantiated; the historical and political situation in the country of that period is described. The library science terminology then emerging and reflecting the political rhetoric of the five-year plans for Soviet economy is discussed. The use of technical terms in the humanitarian sphere is accentuated, e. g. “cultural construction”, “library construction”; within the collectivization paradigm, the terms characterized new methods of organization of work: “collection mobilization”, “consolidation”, “association”, “centralization”, “affiliating”, “hubbing”, “hub (central) library”, “general arts departments”; or the terms reflected the collective nature of work, like “brigades”, “groups” of museum libraries, art experts, “mass reader”, “library activists”. The number of terms characterized the specifics of museum libraries: “special library”, “scientific library”, “cultural and historical library”, “arts library”, “scientific library for arts”, “museum library”, “museum and arts library”, “isobibliothek” [“fine arts library”], “library for arts studies”.Scientific specificity of HAC: 5.10.4. “Library science, bibliography and book science (philological sciences)”.