Jackson Library, Volgograd Version
by Karen A. Wilson
To Russia with Books
Earlier this year, Karen Wilson traveled to Volgograd, Russia, as a volunteer consultant, to create a small business library for entrepreneurs. Her trip was sponsored by the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI), a nonprofit agency in San Francisco that has successfully launched an economic development program in several Russian cities. The Volgograd Business Information Center, with its small business library, is designed to be a model center for other cities. Wilson, who is head technical services librarian/assistant director of the J. Hugh Jackson Library at the Business School, kept a journal of her visit. It is excerpted below.
April 30, Volgograd
- A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.
- And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless.
- We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.
- -- John Steinbeck
- And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless.
Most people remember this place as the former Stalingrad, its name from 1925 to 1961. Before that, it was called Tsaritsyn, dating back to the sixteenth century. Oddly enough, the twentieth-century e-mail address on my Russian business card contains the prerevolutionary Tsaritsyn. After the city was completely destroyed by the Germans in World War II in the Battle of Stalingrad, it was rebuilt in mostly Stalinesque architectural style. I am quite fortunate to have a corner flat with good views of Sovietskaya Street and one of the most popular tourist spots in town, the Panorama War Memorial Museum.
May 2
I visited the Business Information Center (BIC) today for the first time. It is a room of only about 800 square feet, with an adjacent entryway and bathroom. While we may be short on space, we plan to compensate for that with versatility. We have a reception desk, several staff desks, library shelving, a reading table, file cabinets, a conference table, computer workstations, and space for a television and VCR. The center will be staffed by three Russians and one American.I was pleased to see two separate shelving areas. I will use the smaller space for reference material and the larger area for a circulating collection. The computer books and directories can be shelved across the room, next to the workstations and software manuals. I can only envision the library at this point. All of the books are still in boxes, piled almost to the ceiling in one corner of the room.
We have no telephones or security system yet. Therefore, the computers, fax machine, and photocopier are not installed either. Still, with its fresh paint, new carpet, and fine lace curtains, the BIC is beginning to take shape.
May 4
I actually began to feel less like a tourist today, as I unpacked most of the library books that were shipped here last winter from San Francisco. All of this library material has been donated, so I have to work with what I have. I am sorting it into 13 major categories: accounting, business, economics, finance and banking, general management, human resources, industry data, international business, investments, management information systems, management science and statistical methods, marketing, and operations management and production.I am creating my own classification system. It is a combination of the Jackson Library's alphabetical subject arrangement and my variation of a Dewey decimal classification scheme, in which all numbers between 001 and 999 are devoted to business literature alone! Dewey covered the entire spectrum of knowledge in that range, so I should be successful in using this numbering sequence to cope with the complexities of current business topics and still save space for new subjects as they emerge in the future.
My goal is to keep it simple and create a system that can be managed by others for years to come. I am also constantly reminding myself of the scale of the BIC library. There are fewer than 800 volumes and space for a maximum of about 1,200. The collection can be easily browsed by its clients and staff. In comparison, the Jackson Library's reference collection alone has almost 6,000 volumes, and the entire building contains over 400,000 volumes. Admittedly, my system is simplistic, but it should work just fine.
I realize that the BIC library is an experiment, and only time will tell how effectively this collection will be used. There are only English-language books in the library, and no one knows yet how suitable this collection will be for local entrepreneurs. If this model library is successful, however, it can be replicated in other cities throughout Russia and other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
May 9
Today I met the United States deputy ambassador, Richard Miles, and his wife as their entourage from Moscow visited Volgograd. The group spent about 45 minutes at the BIC. Several of us had a chance to talk about our roles in CCI's activities in Volgograd. We described the program that selects Volgograd's small business leaders for one-month internships in the United States. We also talked about the pro bono consulting team of American business leaders that visits Volgograd several times each year to work with local entrepreneurs. Fortunately, I have all of the library books unpacked and sorted by now, so I was also able to show the ambassador some of the valuable information resources available in the BIC.In addition to visiting us, Ambassador Miles met with local Peace Corps staff and individuals responsible for the International Executive Service Corps program in this area. Today I had a sense of being part of a larger American effort in working with the Russians. Coincidentally, this was Victory Day, an official Russian holiday, so there were fireworks in the sky as I walked home tonight after dinner with the ambassador and the other Americans. It seemed as if all of Volgograd's citizens were in the streets tonight to partake in this holiday celebration.
May 17
My husband, David, arrived yesterday. Although he is on vacation, I hope that he will help me with creating the on-line catalog for the CCI library collection and with applying call number labels to the books.I have only one week left to finish all of the cataloging and physical processing. In addition, I plan to give a seminar this week on business information sources available via the Internet and CD-ROM databases.
We spent about an hour today touring Volgograd's public library, which has holdings in excess of two million volumes. I donated four books to their collection: a Russian-language book on vegetable gardening, a new world atlas, a book on American quilting, and The J. Hugh Jackson Library Collections guide I wrote last year. Unfortunately, there are few funds available for new acquisitions, and the librarians we met have not been paid in months. I've met people in Volgograd who have been paid lately with cognac or sugar, but this was the first time I've met anyone who has not received any compensation at all.
May 21
Today, Saturday, David and I visited a dacha to work the land. Our day began at 7:30 in the morning with a 30-minute boat ride across the Volga River, followed by a 45-minute hike through some woods and sandy marsh areas to a small village of dachas. It was hot, dry, and windy. David tended to the strawberry patch and the grapevines while I focused on pulling weeds.Our hosts prepared shashlik for lunch. Over cognac and wine in the shade, we engaged in philosophical conversations about the Russian economy and business development. I am certain that we did not solve any major world problems, but we had a chance to speak freely about present living and working conditions in the United States and Volgograd.
By the end of the day we had weeded the garden, planted more vegetables, and watered almost all of the planter beds and fruit trees. We had to scramble to clean up and hike back to the boat in time for the 7:30 p.m. departure for Volgograd, and we watched the sunset against the city's skyline while cruising the Volga. We are quite dusty, exhausted, and sunburned tonight, but I am very grateful to our friends, Svetlana and Sasha, for giving us the opportunity to be "dachniks" for a day.
May 23
This is my last day in Volgograd, and I completed the final touches in the library this morning. As luck would have it, telephone lines were finally installed in the CCI office today. However, there are critical missing parts: the jacks. I suspect they may not actually be able to use telephones for days, or maybe weeks, after all.I was interviewed today by a newspaper reporter from the Volgogradskaya Pravda who wanted to learn more about the CD-ROM databases I brought with me to Russia. Thanks to the generosity of two American companies, the BIC library has five CD-ROM databases -- the first CD- ROM information resources in Volgograd, so it seems. University Microfilms International donated back files of its Business Dateline, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal full-text newspaper articles. I think that local entrepreneurs will be particularly interested in Business Dateline's coverage of small-business enterprises. Disclosure, Inc., provided Compact D/SEC and Disclosure Worldscope so that entrepreneurs can view financial information on publicly traded companies in the United States and countries throughout the world. The newspaper reporter plans to use a headline for this story that is something like "Library in Your Palm," to convey the concept of having so much information at your fingertips.
My coworkers scheduled a farewell luncheon at the Oktyabrskaya Hotel today. A former Communist Party hotel, it is one of the nicest dining places in Volgograd and one of the few restaurants in town in which I did not hear loud American music. There is something about the Eagles singing "Hotel California" in the background that detracts from the cultural experience of dining in a Russian restaurant.
May 24, St. Petersburg
On this, my final night in Russia, I can rest a while after having fulfilled my mission. Winter was just ending when I arrived here four weeks ago, and now the trees are full of green leaves. Lilacs are in bloom everywhere. I hope that the new beginnings I and others have participated in this past month will be fruitful in years to come, as Russia embarks on rebuilding itself and promoting the success of small businesses. I look forward to returning to Volgograd someday and finding a thriving business community in a prospering city. Lastly, I hope that CCI's Economic Development Program will remain an integral part of the new beginnings for the entrepreneurs and citizens in Volgograd and all of Russia. This was an experience I will never forget and one that has changed my life forever. It seems that the trip did indeed take me.
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