Biblioteka Akademii Nauk

The building is in terrible shape, but inside is one of Russia's best libraries.

The place is impressive in volume! No wonder, the 5th largest library in the world! An incredible number of books, magazines, newspapers! There are so old that you can't even believe your eyes and are in amazing condition. In this library, you begin to understand how difficult the work of a librarian is!

This library was founded by Peter the Great, and already in 1714 books were handed out to readers. So much has happened over the years. There were fires and floods and all sorts of other misunderstandings. And now take a 128-hectare flash drive, and this whole library will be there. What?

I would like to separately note the wonderful cafe at the library, which has been feeding researchers, teachers and students for more than a year. Always very tasty and satisfying. Which is extremely important for intellectual work.

A wonderful library, an extensive catalog with funds. Scanning is prohibitively expensive (175 rubles per page of books from 1850-1900 editions), it would be very nice to allow open free scanning to library users in the reading room with the condition of transferring the received files to the BAN electronic storage fund, such mutually beneficial cooperation would make life easier for everyone. The second option is the purchase of several special book scanners (as in the Berlin Library) and the free use (in the presence of a qualified operator) of at least one of them in the reading room. Such innovations have been needed for a long time!