Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

There are almost 6 million volumes in Duke University's library catalog, about 4 percent of which is made up of holdings in the regional languages of interest to students and scholars of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies.  This database is updated continually as material is ordered, received, and cataloged. The catalog contains entries for many, but not all, materials in formats other than books and journals owned by the Duke University Libraries (e.g., manuscripts, maps, visual media, microforms and government documents).  Please check with the Librarian for Slavic and East European Studies if you are unable to find the item that you need.

Like most library databases, Duke’s online catalog cannot represent the Cyrillic alphabet. Most Slavic-language titles, therefore, are represented in Roman characters. In order to find information in Cyrillic, users must search in Roman characters using the same transliteration system. Most library resources in the United States use the Romanization tables developed by the Library of Congress; also available in a useful one-page summary.

Tips
• When searching for a Cyrillic word or phrase, be sure to use the standard transliteration tables for Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, and other Slavic languages.
• Use the "Advanced” search tab when you want to limit your search for books on a particular topic by date, format, or language. 
• When you find a relevant book in the catalog click on any Subject categories listed on the bottom of the screen to find more books on that topic.
• Use ? or * to truncate search words.
• Put “” around words to search them as a phrase.
• Click on Download/Mail when you are looking at a record to e-mail search results to yourself.
• For more tips on searching Duke’s online catalog, consult Steve Cramer’s guide to Power Keyword Searches                                                                                                               

Books Beyond Duke

It is also useful to search "union" catalogs (i.e. large catalog databases that include multiple libraries' materials). Books and materials that you find in these catalogs can be requested by Duke University borrowers through Perkins’ Interlibrary Loan. You may also suggest a purchase for the Perkins Library collection.

WorldCat: This electronic union catalog contains more than 40 million records describing items (books, computer data files, computer data files, computer programs, films and slides, journals, magazines, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, newspapers, sound recordings, and videotapes) owned by libraries around the world. Each record contains library holdings.  WorldCat does not list articles from journals, books, newspapers, etc. When searching this database, "title phrase" is an exact search for the full title and "title" is a keyword search within the title field. To search for a title where the beginning is known, use "title phrase" and truncate with a *. "Subject phrase" and "author phrase" work the same way.

lib-web-cats: This catalog of catalogs allows you to locate the online catalog of both domestic and international libraries.  Entering the name of the institution will link you either to the catalog or to the library's home page.  It is possible to search by country, although this database is not comprehensive for foreign catalogs.  It is a very good tool when searching for holdings in the U.S. or Western Europe and as such can be very useful when planning domestic research.

Via libri: viaLibri 's Library Search Tool allows quick searching of several international (mostly European) library and national union catalogs, as well as many major US special collections. The search can be entered once at the viaLibri site and then executed in the native interface of each library catalog with one click. This tool will be of most use to those interested in antiquarian books and manuscripts. Individual libraries include: Huntington, Folger, American Antiquarian Society, Morgan, Getty, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Art Institute of Chicago, Kew, Harvard, Yale, Library of Congress and the British Library.   viaLibri works best if results are made to open in a new window. The web site also has a commercial aspect, but the search tool can be used without registering. Scope: 1455-2006.  

Karlsruhe Virtual Katalog (KVK): The Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog allows you to search simultaneously the holdings of many major libraries in Europe, including the state libraries of the Czech Republic, Russia, and Poland. Individual library catalogs may also be searched singly; their availability and coverage of older materials varies. In addition, KVK provides access to the German Union Catalog of Serials and to German book trade catalogs, including German Books in Print. 

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek: This is the retrospective catalog of the Austrian National Library and a major source for East European publications. It includes records for publications issued from 1501-1929. The catalog is searchable by author, title, subject or keyword and has a variety of capabilities for display. The catalog must be searched using German transliteration. Records can be sent via email. It is possible to search a subject index and personal name index and most terms in the record can be linked to other records with the same terms. This is a very important source for those working on East European history and should not be overlooked.

Helsinki National Library/Helsinki University Library Online Catalog (Helka): The catalog of Helsnki University Library contains records of its Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and Bulgarian holdings. The online catalog has records for all Russian monographic materials published after 1700. The interface allows for a simple or complex search and also allows for various format for the display of results. Records can be emailed from this screen or printed. The catalog has an index of subject terms that are especially helpful in finding related records. The older, pre-revolutionary serial publications are not included in this catalog, but Soviet era serials are listed. The catalog also provides a link to a scanned catalog of publications issued in Harbin, China; as well as to a list of rare Russian and early Polonica publications.

National Library of the Ukraine: The library site includes: the library catalog, which has some 204, 000 Ukrainian publications from 1994 on; as well as a separate catalog of the library's holdings of foreign language materials from 1980-1996.  There is also an index of periodical publications.  Ukrainian publications must be searched using Ukrainian encoding, Russian publications must be searched in Russian, Western publications with Latin fonts. Numerous links will assist any scholar interested in the Ukraine in finding other sites with electronic journals, newspapers, search engines and other resources.  There is also an extensive list of links to some 54 Ukrainian libraries.