Margarita Rudomino All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature

In the course of 80 odd years of its history the LFL has transformed from a tiny library with the stock of some 100 books, into a state collection of documents in various forms comprising 4,5 million units in 144 live and dead languages. The LFL, from the very day of its coming into being, has performed the double function: that of a public library and building up its collections in the humanities, arts and literature – and that of a sort of centre for obtaining all kind of information on foreign countries, of a meeting-place, or a forum, where different cultures of the world come together and exchange their spiritual, human and scientific values.