Ada Booth Slavic Collection

The Ada Booth Slavic Collection is home to the Library’s extensive holdings in Ukrainian, Russian, and other Slavic and Eastern European languages.

The collection was established in 2011 thanks to a benefaction from the will of the late Ada Phyllis Booth (1921-2008), physicist and lecturer at the University of Melbourne with a lifelong interest in Slavic Studies, left-wing politics and European history. This generous gift has enabled the Library to build a world-leading Slavic language collection that integrates the Library's Slavic language materials acquired in the last decades, the development of an Ada Booth Rare Collection, and the large collection of Slavic language books from the estate of Ada Booth.

Collection areas

The items held in the Ada Booth Slavic Collection are a broad representation of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies. The collection reflects the current areas of research and teaching at the University with a particular focus on modern and contemporary literature, history, politics, international relations, social studies and arts. A strong focus in collection development is on Slavic Australiana, Soviet studies, migrant and diaspora literature and culture.

Electronic Resources

The Library provides access to a great number of eBooks and electronic databases pertaining to Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, funded by the Ada Booth Benefaction.

These resources include:

• American Bibliography of Slavic and East European studies (EBSCO)
• Central and Eastern European Online Library [CEEOL]
• East View Universal Databases (East View)
  • Pravda Digital Archive 1912 - 2009
  • Moscow News Digital Archive
  • Soviet Women Digital Archive
  • Ogonek Digital Archive
  • Voprosy Istorii Digital Archive
  • Current Digest of the Russian Press
  • Donetsk and Luhansk Newspaper Collection
  • Various Social Movements, Elections, Ephemera from East European and Eurasian countries (1991-2019)
• Socialism on Film (Adam Matthew)
• Stalin Digital Archive (Yale University Press and the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History)

See our full list of databases for Slavic and Eastern European Studies.