Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Pokrovsky (2 [14] June 1879, The History of Nizhny Novgorod — 29 August 1942, Chardzhou) — library scientist, bibliographer, and library figure, one of the founders of Soviet library science as an academic discipline. A native of Nizhny Novgorod, he was subsequently exiled there twice by the authorities for revolutionary activity.[2]
Early Years and Connection with Nizhny Novgorod
Pokrovsky enrolled at Moscow University in 1897, but was exiled for revolutionary activity back to Nizhny Novgorod — the first time in 1898–1900, and the second time in 1905–1909. He graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1904. From 1909 onward he lived permanently in Moscow.[2]
Library Activities
In Moscow, Pokrovsky devoted himself to organizing a library network, studying readers, cataloguing, developing collections, and addressing questions of self-education through reading. In 1910–1911 he organized a circle of Social-Democrat librarians at the A. S. Griboyedov reading library. In 1912–1913 he served as secretary of the Library Science Commission of the Russian Bibliographic Society at Moscow University. In 1916 he took part in founding the Russian Library Society and joined its board.[2]
From 1916 to 1918 he headed the A. S. Pushkin city reading library. In 1919 he founded and led the N. A. Nekrasov Central City Public Library in Moscow, which he directed until 1936; at the same time he assisted in building the network of city reading libraries in Moscow and Petrograd, proposing that the experience of the United States, Austria, Germany, and other countries be drawn upon.[2]
Pokrovsky participated in the First All-Russian Congress on Library Affairs (1911) and in library and bibliographic congresses of the 1920s–1930s, and was one of the organizers of the Moscow Library Institute (1930). He organized library courses at A. L. Shanyavsky People's University (1913), taught there in 1916–1918, and also founded the Library Seminary (1919), lecturing at the Academy of Communist Education and at library courses run by various institutions.[2]
Scholarly Views and Works
He authored more than 130 books and articles. In the early 1920s he wrote a number of works on the acquisition of popular library collections, defending the objectivity of librarians in that process. In 1924 he was the first to systematize V. I. Lenin's views on library affairs in the article "Lenin's Directives." He regarded library science as a unified discipline concerned with library work within the framework of the social sciences, and rejected the notion that cultural and educational institutions could be ideology-free or non-partisan.[2]
From 1927 to 1942 he worked successively at the Bureau of Central Cataloguing, the Research Institute of Library Science and Recommended Bibliography, and the library of the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering. He died in evacuation in Chardzhou in 1942.[2]
Legacy
Pokrovsky's career is the subject of Yu. V. Grigoryev's monograph "A. A. Pokrovsky (1879–1942)" (Moscow, 1965) and O. V. Peskov's book "A. A. Pokrovsky and His Library: The History of the Founding of the N. A. Nekrasov Central City Public Library" (Moscow, 2003). An article about him is included in the Library Encyclopedia (Moscow: Pashkov Dom, 2007).[2]
Sources
- dates.gnpbu.ru — Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Pokrovsky
- opentextnn.ru — List of Holdings of the State Treasury Institution TsANO as of 01.01.2019 — OPEN TEXT (archive)