Rudolf Smits at the Library of Congress: Bibliographer for Slavic, Soviet and Eastern European Studies, 1941-1972

Abstract

ABSTRACT Rudolf Smits (1907–1972) was a Latvian diplomat stranded in the United States after the Soviet invasion of his country in 1941. Seeking new employment, he began work at the Library of Congress later that same year. Smits labored on a number of projects in the area of government and periodical bibliography, but he found his unique place in the library profession in the creation of bibliographies and union catalogs of Soviet publications. The bibliographies and catalogs were funded by various government agencies as a result of the intensive U.S. Cold War interest in the Soviet Union. This article traces the biography and career of Rudolf Smits with a discussion of several key Slavic reference tools developed by Smits or under his supervision, including the Cyrillic Union Catalog, the Monthly List of Russian Accessions and Half a Century of Soviet Serials.