Leninka Digital

For more than a year and a half, the vaults of the Russian State Library have been closed, but none of the compilers of business planes for patriotism, positive image and the national idea have sadden this. The library, like a battery of Tushin, is abandoned and forgotten

Whatever you ride - “Lexus”, “penny” or trolleybus, the movement scheme in the center of Moscow will inevitably take you to a gray building with columns occupying a whole quarter between the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense. Someone will be misleading gigantic letters on the roof - Samsung Digital. Do not believe neon tubes, they will be removed or replaced after an advertising contract. The words that were bred by gold on the entrance will remain: "The State Library of the USSR named after Lenin." Under the inscription - a bronze globe with a side dish of a bay leaf and a pentagram. Soviet coat of arms, if anyone forgot.

Those who want to read something stomp from the cathedral gates of entrance No. 1. They pull on the bronze handles, trying to determine which out of four can open. The most timid is already out of this stage. The next filter is a recording stand. You should be more than 18 years old. A passport, diploma or student ID is checked, and you get a dark blue book. A long number will accurately indicate your specialization and a place in the scientific hierar of hiya. You can get into the sedimentation tank of the common hall, get out in the empires of the first, replenish the circle of readers of the technical second or humanitarian third hall. For the checkpoint - white marble and bronze of the central staircase. We will turn right. Under the blue arch of the third hall, on carved choirs - bronze Lenin. He is invisible. He sits and complains about his stomach. Even the liberal, who in Soviet times called Leningrad Peter, still easily and freely pronounces: "Leninka." And that's right. The name of the leader was given to both stadiums and pedagogical institutes. But he himself preferred Bavarian beer football, and loved the kids no more than Harms. But in the best libraries of France, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland spent much more time than in royal links. He did not have time to get to America, but he studied the reports of the New York Public Library with the capacity of the inspector.

In classic horror films, each monster should have a refuge: the department of the mummy in the British Museum or the Paris Opera. The nightmare is doubly impressed when it is generated by the walls of the institution of magnificent and respectable. Lenin Phantom, arising from book dust. Yes, and the society that he has designed resembled an exemplary book depository. Each accounting unit in its place, ready for delivery and use. Uniforms, on it is a tag with a cipher. Incorrect books were sent to the zone - special security was organized by personal Lenin's instruction. It is generally accepted that the mausoleum is built on the model of Babylonian pyramids-winterbules. Does he rather resemble a stack of books with a clear inscription on the spine?

But do not think that all of Leninka is a reserve of a large Soviet style. As in the country itself, signs of different eras were fancifully mixed in its main library. Marble of ceremonial interiors, white plastic of computer halls. And in the Corps “K” on Mokhova (where the Comintern was sitting at one time, and even earlier the numbers of “Peterhof” were located with the most dubious reputation) the ancient elevator with a burea-based instruction and signature from time to time: “Zhilotel Hoza of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, August 25, 1957.”

Wandering around the complex of library buildings, moving from window to window, more fascinating than along the picture gallery. The dome of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Gray prison array of bookstores. The garbage dumps, torn construction sites ... And suddenly, the white columns of Pashkov’s unfortunate house sprout from all this rubbish. A brilliant panorama of an unusually close Kremlin is visible from one window with all its palaces and towers. From the neighboring only a piece of firefighter in a deaf Moscow courtyard and a cat drinking water from a puddle.

The white -gramin promenade of the main building is cluttered with dilapidated plank dresses. This is an informational-search system on solid media, “Card catalog”. Section “A” - “Marxism -Leninism”. Seeing this “a”, many will not want any “b”. Where is there to look for “tolerance”, “franchising” or, on the contrary, “Eurasianism”? In addition, the catalog card is far from full. Previously, he was subjected to state censorship. Nowadays, some readers use a radical way to combat opponents - pulling out cards. A few inconspicuous movements and a scientific school hostile to the card hacker is drowning in the River of oblivion.

But an experienced reader is calmly looking for what he needs, and in most cases finds. The library, like a submarine, consists of many autonomous compartments and segments that support vitality in an emergency. The information you need can be found in the center of legal information or the information center for culture and art, the military department or the Russian foreign department. In addition, it is more reasonable to spend scarce library resources not on shifting millions of cards, but on the creation of an electronic catalog, which attackers are not tough. Tower of silence Funds of the library National treasure. From use, it inevitably falls into decay - it is lost, torn, a divorce of mercite lubrication, distinguished by an ancient conveyor, is covered. Some readers tear out if, where is the way out?

- Perhaps in the depository storage system. After all, a significant part of the fund is not in demand at all. These books are needed by readers at best once every two to three years. They can be separated from the main fund and sent to some complex in the suburbs. The book does not disappear anywhere, but the reader who ordered it will have to wait four days. But it will be possible to use the active part more quickly. Now the shortage of space leads to the fact that we are forced to stagnate part of the funds, and then they generally become inaccessible.

Such a division of the fund is a gigantic work. On one tier there is about a million storage units. Now imagine: we need to view this million and select 100 thousand for active funds. And still - it is important to make a fundamental decision on the transition to depository storage. But for this you need a small revolution in the minds of librarians.

- Why?

- The librarian is arranged so that he does not give anything anywhere, on the contrary, he collects everything. And the ideal reader for him is one who never touches books at all.