SONYA G. MACHELSON Washington, D. C.
THEMonthly List of Russian Accessions is a record of publications in the Rnssian language issued in and outside of the Soviet Union which are currently received by the Library of Congress and a group of cooperating libraries. Some Soviet publications printed in languages other than Rnssian are also included. The first issue appeared in April, 1948. It consisted of two parts. Part A listed monographs published since 1945; Part B listed the contents of Soviet periodicals published since 1947. Both parts were transliterated. Sometimes translations of the contents of certain periodicals were made available to the Library of Congress, and in that case the titles appeared in English. Unless otherwise indicated, all listed entries are represented in the collections of the Library of Congress. Symbols representing other libraries are given in the introductory note. The interest of scholars and research workers in publications emanating from the Soviet Union has increased greatly during the past few years. Requests have been made for more information about articles in Soviet periodical literature; and by readers with little or no knowledge of the Russian language, for more English translations. To satisfy these demands, the Monthly List was expanded, beginning with the March, 1952, issue. This issue consists of four parts: A, B, C, and D. Part A containing monographs only, lists author, English translation of the title, transliteration of the Russian title, publishing house, date of publication, and number of pages. Part B gives a transliterated table of contents of periodicals. Part C is a subject index to the periodical articles listed in Part B. The title of each article is translated into English and listed under the appropriate subject heading. Part D lists publications known to have appeared recently in the U.S.S.R. but not reported to be in any library in the United States. The English translation of the title is included. However, Part D is being conducted as an experiment only. So far, few libraries have shown interest in it, and it may be discontinued shortly. Starting with the September, 1952, issue, monographs are listed under appropriate subject headings in Part C. Part B includes the table of contents of periodicals both in the translated and transliterated forms. At the present time, the Monthly List covers abont 500 books and 250 periodicals per month. The parts A, B, and D are subdivided into 17 classes, namely: Presented at the 122nd Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Atlantic City, New Jersey, September, 1952.
general and reference works, bibliography, agriculture, education, fine arts, geography and geology, history, language, literature and folklore, law, medicine, military and naval sciences, music, theater and motion pictures, philosophy and religion, political science, science, social sciences, and technology. The scope of the material covered by the Monthly List is wide. There are qnite a number of children's books and magazines which receive considerable attention from American educators; various periodicals such as Printing Industry, Agrobiology, Fisheries. The fine arts are represented by Architecture of the U.S.S.R. Art, etc. There are qnite a few periodicals on medicine, geology, geography, history, economics. Linguistics too is well represented, and you will find even a fashion magazine. A number of books and periodicals in the field of science and technology are covered. Let me mention just a few of them: Publications of the Academy of Sciences, U.S.S.R., such as Izvestiyaand Doklady; Scientific Records of the University of Moscow; Colloid Journal; Advances in Chemistry; Journal of General Chemistry; Journal of Applied Chemistry; Advances in Physics; Journal of General Biology; Veterinary Medicine; Soil Science. As compared with periodicals published in the U. S. A. Soviet periodicals appear in small editions. For instance, only 750 copies of the Ukranian Biochemical Journal are published, and 800 copies of the Ukranian Chemical Journal. I t seems to me that the Library of Congress is doing a splendid job by acquiring these pnblications. In addition to Soviet publications, abont 20 periodicals published in the Russian language outside of the U.S.S.R. are also included in the Monthly List. They deal with specific problems of the emigres or are of religious nature. By an agreement with the All-Union Lenin Library in Moscow, cards showing some of their acquisitions are being received sporadically from that library. The cards give author, title, and publication date of each book as well as a brief summary of its contents. As I understand, these titles will be included in Part D of the Monthly List, if these books have not been reported as being received in the U. S. A. Now a few words abont translators and translating. I am sure that qnite a few chemists have encountered difficulties owing to inaccurate translations. Good translators are rare, since they must have a thorough knowledge of the original language, an adequate background to understand what the article is about, and a
AUGUST, 1953
good knowledge of the English language, to be able to present a clear English version. Let me cite a few examples of translations I have come across. A certain Ph.D., but not a chemist, with a limited knowledge of the Russian language, translated a chemical article. Here is one sentence: "The solution was titrated with solyanaya kislota (hydrochloric acid)." The translator confused solyanaya kislota with sol' (salt) and wrote: "The solution was titrated with salts of carbonic acid." (Where the carbonic acid came from, I wouldn't know). Another Ph.D., an organic chemist, translated a German article on agricultural chemistry. He confused weissen (white) with Weizen (wheat), and instead of "wheat worm" he wrote "white worm" which quite alarmed the recipient of the translation, an agricultural chemist. A translator who knows Russian quite well but has
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no scientific training once translated Denaturatsiya proteinou (denaturation of proteins) as "denaturalization" of proteins. Another one had to translate gribki (fungi). He could not find an'blci in his dictionarv but he found grib (mushroom)", and he translated g r i h i as ''domestic mushrooms." Now you can see what the editor has to cope with. By and large, translations in the Monthly List are quite accurate. But if you should find an occasional-shall I say, . . slip . of the dictionarv?-you - - will understand how it happened. The Monthly List of Russian Accessions lists about 5000 entries per month which amounts t o 60,000 entries a year. Over 50 Der cent of the neriodicals are scientific. Quite a few periodicals are reported on within two or three mouths after their publication in the Soviet Union.
