AMENDMENTS AND ADDITIONS TO THE DRAFT DECREE
DRAFTED BY N. K. KRUPSKAYA
On November 3, 1920, it was deemed absolutely necessary
that all central and local institutions—without exception, whether central or local—under the guidance of
this work
? see at the end?
1) In view of the colossal surge in demand for books over the past few years, a demand that continues to grow unabated, the Council of People’s Commissars decrees:
special attention must be given to the organization of public access to books, for without such access, books will never truly become available to the broad masses of the population.
2) To this end, all libraries under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of Education are to be integrated into a Unified Library Network of the RSFSR, which will operate according to a clearly defined plan, establish basic library types, link these libraries through mobile book collections, and organize inter-library book exchanges—thereby bringing the book ever closer to the working-class reader and the peasant**.
3) Given the acute book shortage and the sheer inadequacy of existing book resources in relation to the enormous demand, no parallelism whatsoever is permissible in library affairs. Consequently, libraries belonging to all other departments, public organizations, and institutions must likewise join the Unified Library Network and operate according to a common plan, under the oversight of the People’s Commissariat of Education.
4) To coordinate library activities, an interdepartmental commission shall be established within the People’s Commissariat of Education, composed of representatives from the various departments and organizations engaged in library work.
5) This commission shall address questions concerning the reorganization of certain library types, the reallocation of book holdings, the transfer of specific library types under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat of Education, and the establishment of new libraries upon application by departments and organizations (with their automatic inclusion in the overall network).
6) All libraries formerly under closed administration must be opened to the public—becoming libraries for public use, accessible to all citizens.
*
The words underlined here were crossed out in the original manuscript by V. I. Lenin and replaced with new text.
* * V. I. Lenin amended the end of this sentence to read: “this network must operate according to a clearly defined plan, establishing basic library types, linking them through mobile book collections, organizing inter-library book exchanges, and thereby bringing the book ever closer to the working-class reader and the peasant.”