Information Department

This Department functions as a scientific library by keeping books, periodicals, separate reprints, and other published and manuscript matters that are relevant to the professional activity of the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University.

The latter is rightfully proud of its Library, which is one of the largest specialized zoological libraries in Moscow.  At the beginning of 2000s, it had 189,272 storage units, including approximately 50,000 Russian and foreign books, 46,000 scientific journals and more than 93,000 reprints and dissertation abstracts. The oldest book in the library is “The Natural History of Birds” by Pierre Belon, published in Paris in 1555.

The library is visited by about 3,000 readers annually to retrieve at least 17,000 publications.

History of the Library

A special library was founded at the Zoological Museum as late as in 1865. The first acquisitions of zoological publications were made due to donations of members of the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography at Moscow University. By 1917, it held more than 7,000 printed matters.

Previously, there were several other book depositories belonging to other departments of the University then located in the Museum building, including the Student Library of the Natural Sciences Department at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics (since 1890) and the Research Institute of Zoology (since 1923). In the early 1930s, the Museum library was actually united with the latter’s library.

According to the memoirs by V.I. Korotkova, who was in charge of the Museum library for many years and contributed much to its restoration in the post-war years, the library had fallen into a disrepair by the mid-1950s, and it possessed then only about 3,000 books and journals.

By now, the library has grown to a level that many museums could envy.

Photo by A.V. Ladygin