Certain Problems of Organisation of Public Library Network in the Soviet Union

According to the 1969 census the population of the Soviet Union is 241 million of which 105 million persons live in the countryside. In order to provide this large population living in a vast area with the opportunity of using library books, a broad and ramified network of library institutions had to be organized which would make it possible to bring the library closer to the people's homes or place of work. At present there are a little over 122,000 public libraries of which 35,000 serve the urban population and nearly 87,000 serve the rural population. There are an average of 1,900 readers per library. There are 1,193,590,000 books, magazines, brochures or an average of 5.0 books per capita in the libraries' collections. Factors which will have a decisive effect on the organizational structure of the public library network are: (1) changes in the socio-demographical structure of the urban and rural populations, (2) more free time, (3) higher level of knowledge and professional qualifications, (4) expansion principles of populated localities of various types and structures, (5) preferential industrial or agricultural development of certain territories and (6) development of interdepartmental co-operation and co-ordination of planning. The multistaged structure of the library network is a sound basis for the centralized system and allows better usage of the book collections of each library. (NH)