Experiences with bilingual publishing: surveys of authors and editors

Bilingual publishing has become a strategy employed by journals from the non‐Anglophone world to gain wider recognition. Beyond anecdotal evidence, however, there are no published accounts of the experiences of editors and authors of bilingual journals with the process of bilingual publication. It is also unclear how authors writing in bilingual journals judge the quality of the translations and whether they consider this sort of publishing as beneficial for their aims. Consequently, we carried out two surveys: one among editors of bilingual journals and one anonymous survey among authors and translators of articles published in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, the bilingual journal of the German Medical Association. Eight of nine journals as well as 233 of 353 authors and 4 of 6 translators took part. Most journals reported that bilingual publication helped in becoming indexed in important databases (e.g. Medline), receiving or improving an Impact Factor, and in attracting authors. All journals plan to continue publishing bilingually. Authors were ‘satisfied’ (40.8%) or ‘very satisfied’ (57.8%) with translations. Almost all (96.7%) were in favour of bilingual publication of their work. They did not view an English translation as an obstacle to another related English language paper. Translators highlighted challenges relating to specialized terminology and to terms specific to the regional healthcare system.     

Reference Question Answered: Discussion of Russian Funeral Rites As Depicted in the 2006 Film V poiskakh schast’ia (In Search of Happiness)

ABSTRACT. The author answers a reference question on the depiction of a funeral in the 2006 Russian documentary film V poiskakh schast’ia (In Search of Happiness), which takes place in the Jewish Autonomous Region in Siberia. Consultations and reference sources show that what was depicted was not Jewish, but a typical Russian civil funeral procession. Helpful publications included historical and historical‐ethnographic monographs and an ethnographic encyclopedia.     

Crossing the Channel: Publishing Translated German Fiction in the UK

In a review of Hans Fallada’s novel Alone in Berlin—finally translated into English after 62 years—Sam Jordison stated, “[I]t’s an important book that no English writer could have written—and so another resounding argument for the importance of taking in translations. It makes me wonder what else we’ve been missing.” Translated fiction plays a minimal role in the UK. Scholars are increasingly directing their attention towards this deficit. This paper will consider the culture of translation in the UK and Ireland, with a particular focus on translated German fiction.

     

“War Through Children’s Eyes” in the Archiwum Wschodnie [Eastern Archive] Collection

In 1981, Hoover Institution Press published a collection of testimonies of Polish citizens and their children deported to the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941. War Through Children’s Eyes contained English translations of compositions, interviews, and testimonies from the Polish Government Collection at the Hoover Institution Archives. In the 1980s efforts were underway in Poland to collect similar personal stories of survivors of Soviet deportations, including children’s testimonies. The result was the creation of the Archiwum Wschodnie [Eastern Archive] and the KARTA Center in Warsaw. The archive, legalized after the fall of Communism in 1990, is a major primary source collection dealing with the history of former Polish eastern territories. The paper discusses parts of the Archiwum Wschodnie collection focusing on the testimonies of children deported to the Soviet Union. The trauma of war and displacement is examined through personal stories and testimonies of deportees.     

The Bibliophile Andrei Avinoff: Additional Information Regarding Soviet Book Sales of the Interwar Period (1917–1937)

This article concludes work started for a presentation on bibliophile Andrei Avinoff made at a symposium on Russian art and Russian studies in America in 2008 and for the 2009 book Treasures into Tractors. A member of the pre-Revolutionary Russian aristocracy, Andrei Avinoff, emigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and managed to collect imperial association books and books on Russian art from some of the same dealers—Simeon Bolan and Israel Perlstein—who were supplying large research institutions such as the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Harvard University Library with the same material.     

In Memory of the Czar: A Review of the Memoirs of Witnesses and Contemporaries of Emperor Nicholas II

ABSTRACT

This article surveys the collection devoted to the memory of Emperor Nicholas II held at the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco. The author describes the cataloged materials of a unique collection of materials passed on to the Museum by Russian emigrants of the first and second waves, many of whom worked to preserve the memory of Russia’s last Sovereign and also made a significant contribution to the creation of the Museum and its archival collections.     

Translations of Les Misérables for Law Libraries

This article discusses the publication history of English-language translations of Les Misérables. It critically evaluates the merits of available translations and makes recommendations about acquiring and deaccessioning various editions.     

Soviet Photography in America: An Introduction to the New York Public Library’s Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary Slavic,East European,and Baltic Collection

ABSTRACT

This article is an introduction to the New York Public Library’s revolutionary and post-revolutionary Soviet and East European photography holdings. It outlines the materials available to researchers from both the large and smaller collections, particularly those that are useful for studies of Revolutionary Russia and the History or World War II in Russia and Eastern Europe. Of particular note is the NYPL’s wealth of images documenting Poland during the Second World War and the Bessie Beatty album The Russian Revolution: An Album of Photographs.     

The Russian Orthodox Church and Russian Emigration as Documented in the Archives of the Western American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia

ABSTRACT

Among the extensive archives of the Western American Diocese of the ROCOR (over 2,000 document files), of greatest historical value are undoubtedly the archives of St. John (Maximovich) and of Archbishop Tikhon (Troitskii), the archives of the Russian spiritual mission in China, the archives from the Archbishops and Ecumenical Councils of the ROCOR, and the archives of the oldest clerics and parishes of the ROCOR. Also, the correspondence and labors of Bishop Nektarii (Kontsevich) and Archbishop Antonii (Medvedev) are of considerable significance for historians. In archives is hidden the potential for many research projects, for historians and linguists alike. Some documents have been researched, translated and published in the Diocesan Russian–English magazine, Spiritual Spring Journal. However, the majority of these unique materials are waiting for its researchers.     

Pre-Revolutionary Russian Photography at the New York Public Library: An Introduction

ABSTRACT

This article is an introduction to the New York Public Library’s pre-revolutionary Russian and Eastern European photographic albums. It also provides a checklist of these albums. The checklist is an especially rich source for Russian architecture, art, and science and provides documentation for a variety of places in the center and provinces of the Russian Empire. Some of the most significant albums are those once owned by the Romanovs and by George Kennan the elder, America’s first Russian expert.     

Library Statistics: The Russian National Standard

Goals for developing the Russian national standard GOST 7.0.20—2014, System of Standards for Information, Librarianship, and Publishing: Library Statistics: Indicators and Units of Calculation, were to create lists of statistical indicators for library and documentation activities and to establish the statistical units for measuring those activities. The regulations included in the new standard will improve Russian library statistics, since its indicators cover all areas of modern library work. Unified indicators and units of calculation will promote uniformity in the primary statistical data submitted. Such uniformity facilitates accurate comparison and analysis for planning, accounting, and forecasting.     

Soviet Rock Collection and International Counterculture Archive at the Global Resources Center of the George Washington University Libraries

ABSTRACT

This memoir is my personal story about how I created and came to curate on the International Counterculture Archive collection, which is held in the Global Resources Center of the George Washington University’s (GWU) Gelman library. The first person narrative relates my first encounters with Soviet rock culture and describes how I turned my initial interest into a Ph.D. dissertation on the subculture of Soviet hippies and traditions of Soviet rock music, which subsequently led to my later work as a librarian and curator. I tell the story of my initial encounters with the members of Soviet/Russian rock music subculture and other countercultural personalities and activists during my first trip to Moscow in 1993 to collect samples of Soviet rock music recordings and rock music zines for the European Division of the Library of Congress. During this formative trip I met with a number of counterculture producers and collectors who were instrumental in helping me build the International Counterculture Archive. Upon leaving the Library of Congress, I continued collecting Soviet/Russian countercultural materials on behalf of the Global Resources Center of GWU’s Gelman Library. I talk about the process of creating the Archive at Gelman library, about bureaucratic and financial aspects of this work, and about my many acquisition trips to Moscow, former Soviet republics, and East Central Europe. Much of the narrative centers on my work with Russian collectors and content producers and describes the type of materials that are included in the collection. I also describe how I built the collection of historical Soviet/Russian rock music recordings, focusing on the phenomenon of Soviet/Russian rock music zines and the history of the unique zine collection within the International Counterculture Archive.     

Libraries,Lectures, and Talk Shows: Some Russian Internet Resources for Research,Teaching, and Learning

ABSTRACT

Ethnocentrism affects perception and choices, and scholars, teachers, and students may not see or seek the “global” in our “global information revolution,” especially in such vast monolingual social spaces as the United States and the Anglophone world. Russia illuminates how unfortunate this state of affairs is because perceptions of Russia are so negative; whereas online information and open access there are so plentiful. Elibrary.ru offers free, full-text access to Russia’s periodical scholarship in all disciplines. Postnauka.ru is a lecture platform for Russian academics that rivals TED Talks in scale and production quality. Kul’tura is a federal television channel devoted entirely to education. Academic talk shows constitute part of the programming there and elsewhere. High-quality and reliable online tools such as these can enhance “Western” scholars’ and educators’ resource repertoires.     

The Visual Holdings of the Slavonic Library,Prague

This study focuses on the visual collections in the holdings of the Slavonic Library (a section of the National Library of the Czech Republic). The library holdings also include unique collections relevant to the topic of Russian and Ukrainian emigration: collections of visual art, ex libris, posters and flyers by Ukrainian émigrés (1918–1945), and a collection of invitations and flyers by Russian émigrés (1918–1945). Rudolf H?lka’s collection of photographs, dating back to the 1920s, captures a series of ethnographic, folkloric, and architectonic phenomena which no longer exist. Moreover, Russian posters from the period of WWI, from the revolutionary year of 1917, and the subsequent civil war are equally fascinating as are banknotes from the same period and region.     

Fifty years of translation: The Index Translationum completes a half century

Index Translationum tracks translations published all over the world. Its statistics provide insight into the cultural geography of publishing.     

Academic Digital Libraries Russian Style: An Introduction to The Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature and Folklore

SUMMARY

This article provides an overview of The Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature and Folklore (FEB-web). The intersection of philology and information technologies at FEB-web is considered in the context of Russian culture and the Russian academy. Topics discussed include: the FEB-web process for creating digital scholarly editions, the structure of FEB-web, new developments in the FEB-web collections, plans for the future, copyright issues, digitization processes, inter-library cooperation, and the place of digital libraries in constructing civil society in Russia.     

The Slavist in the Digital World: Creating Scholarly Resources in Partnership with Librarians at the University of Virginia

ABSTRACT. This article offers a brief discussion of two projects—the creation of a set of digital images of Russian art and an exhibit of modern Russian children's books—developed in collaborative partnership between a Slavist and librarians at the University of Virginia. Both of these projects were designed to create shareable, flexible, and sustainable resources for research and educational use. The challenges and benefits of collaborative partnerships between scholars and librarians are discussed, and models for conceptualizing the relationships are also proposed.     

The Central Eurasian Interactive Atlas Project: A Progress Report

SUMMARY

Since 2000, researchers and staff at the University of Washington have been developing a unified Geographic Information Systems database of Russian Federation socioeconomic, demographic, and political information at the raion and city (gorsovet) level. The Central Eurasian Interactive Atlas (CEIA) that has grown from this effort serves both to archive and to provide access to annual progressions of standardized geographic and tabular data covering the entire Russian Federation at a level of geographic detail not readily available elsewhere. As the CEIA grows, it will serve as a curricular and research focus of the UW's Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies program.     

Russian Art Books and Folios of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives: Niche Collections One Hundred Years On

ABSTRACT

This article describes the Russian Art Collection at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, along with some other small bodies of material held by this library which resulted from, or were influenced by, Frank A. Golder’s collecting activity soon after the Russian Revolution. It places these materials within the context of the Hoover Institution’s historical collecting mission.