Book Chamber of the Ukrainian SSR

Book Chamber of the Ukrainian SSR (Книжкова палата УРСР ім. І. Федорова; Knyzhkova palata URSR im. I. Fedorova). A bibliographical institution formed in 1922 in Kharkiv under the name Ukrainian Book Chamber. It was organized on the basis of the Supreme Book Chamber, established in Kyiv in 1919, and of the Central Bibliographical Department of the All-Ukrainian State Publishing House (see State Publishing House of Ukraine) in Kharkiv. A subsidiary of the Ukrainian Book Chamber was the Ukrainian Scientific Institute of Bibliology in Kyiv. The chamber received and registered all works printed in Soviet Ukraine and many Ukrainian works published outside Ukraine. The results of its work were published in the journal Knyha and its supplement Bibliograficheskii biulleten' Ukrainskoi knizhnoi palaty (4 issues, 1923), in Nova knyha (1924–5), and principally in Litopys ukraïns'koho druku (1924–30). Kartkovyi repertuar was published separately, while Knyzhkovi novyny URSR, Rekomendatsiini spysky, and Biuleten' retsenzii na knyzhkovo-zhurnal'nu produktsiiu URSR came out as a supplement to Radians'kyi knyhar. The Ukrainian Scientific Institute of Bibliology published Bibliohrafichni visti (1923–30).

In 1935 the Book Chamber of the Ukrainian SSR was subordinated to the All-Union Book Chamber and Litopys ukraïns'koho druku was revived under the name Litopys druku URSR; it later appeared as a number of bibliographic journals. The chamber also published a bulletin, Novi vydannia URSR; and retrospective bibliographic guides; conducted numerous statistical studies on Ukrainian publishing; and served as a center for bibliographical and bibliological research. Its archives contained over eight million items.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]