The Library of Zoological Museum is one of the best among specialized libraries in zoology that can be found in Moscow. It includes about 190 thousands of items including 50 thousand books from other countries, about 46 thousands of issues of scientific journals, and more that 93 thousand reprints.

The oldest book kept in the Library is Belon's "Natural history of birds..." published in Paris in 1555.

The Library is open for professional and amateur zoologists, for students and schoolchildren. It is visited annually by no less than 3 thousand people.

History of the Library

The Library, as a special division of the Museum, has began in 1865 from a collection of books purchased for it by the Society of Amateurs in Natural History, Anthropology, and Ethnography. Its stock exceeded 7 thousand items by 1917. In the 1930s it got united with the library of the Research Zoological Institute of the Moscow University situated in the Museum building. Due to this, most of the books appeared to be moved to the library of Biological Faculty in 1953, when a new Moscow University campus was build up on Leninskie Gory. And it was not until the early 1960s when the large part of the Library returned back to the Museum due to efforts of its head, Mrs. Vera I. Korotkova, and Dr. Nikolay N. Plavilshchikov, then head of the Museum exhibitions.