LNS RAS is a structural unit of the RAS Presidium and has a status of a research institute. Its activities are being coordinated by the Information and Library Council of the RAS.

As a whole the CLS LNS RAS renders services to more than 76 thousand readers. Its library collections on natural sciences are the most large and comprehensive in Russia. They include about 15 million library items.

• centralized acquisition of library material to develop the collections of the CLS branch libraries including the analysis of the world book market, the subscription to scholar periodicals, the purchase of books and serials, international exchange of publications, the receipt of the literature and its distribution among the libraries of the CLS;
• centralized cataloguing of all coming in literature and supplying the CLS branch libraries with the library materials along with bibliographic descriptions made on traditional cards or in electronic format;
• management of the traditional and electronic summary catalogues of the CLS's collections; providing an access to the electronic catalogues via the Internet;
• playing the role of the Inter-Library Loan Center in the field of natural science;
• purchase of the databases and the rights for an access to electronic publications and databases via the Internet to the CLS's readers;
• creating the electronic information resources on the results of the RAS research activity and making them available to the users of the Internet;
• information provision of the researches conducted in the RAS on the bases of the own and acquired resources;
• working out, introducing and supporting the up-to-date automation technologies in the CLS libraries;
• conducting research among others in the fields of computerization of the information and library processes; optimizing the CLS management; elaboration of the literature classification schemes.

• Library collections of the LNS RAS
  The LNS RAS possesses the collection of library material that is one of the most comprehensive collections of scholar literature published after 1973 (the year when the Library was established). It has about 1,5 million library items. The collection of LNS RAS includes literature on natural sciences as well as on theoretical problems of technical, medical and agricultural sciences. As to the types of publications there are monographs, reference books, periodicals, conference proceedings, preprints, foreign dissertations and published reports.
  The LNS RAS does not acquire educational and popular scientific literature. The LNS RAS has agreements for the book exchange with more than 400 partners all over the world.



• Cataloques of the LNS RAS.
  LNS RAS has a Card Union Catalogue of all library collections that are being developed in CLS branch libraries of the RAS institutes. It covers the time period with effect from 1930. Since 1990 the Library has been managing an electronic union catalogue of periodicals, since 1995 - a union electronic catalogue of books and serials. On the LNS RAS Website you can find the current acquisitions coming in weekly.



• Reader services.
  An employee of any RAS institution is eligible to become a regular reader of the LNS after showing his identification card. Other persons are served on a contractual basis. The readers may request documents to use them in the Library's reading room, look through newly acquired library material on the Exhibition of new comings, order photocopies, may use the Internet room.



• National and International Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services.
  The LNS RAS provides interlibrary loan and document delivery services to Russian and foreign libraries. It loans original library material and supplies articles in paper and electronic formats. The LNS RAS accepts orders by mail, fax, by email and online via the Internet. You can find detailed information about the International Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services here or use contact email: mmba@benran.ru



• Information Services. Along with rendering current information services to its patrons, the LNS complies with separate requests for several types of work received from different organizations. Among these types of work are the following ones:
  • compiling subject bibliographies in different science areas;
  • making the problem-oriented databases on different aspects in natural sciences;
  • working out/adaptation of software for libraries;
  • making paper copies, microfiche and microfilm copies of the library material collected by the LNS centralized library system.
  For detailed information about the different kind of services offered by the LNS RAS, please, use the following contact e-mail: osiat@benran.ru



• Research work.
  As the LNS RAS has the status of a research institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, much attention is given to research aimed at updating of the processes leading to the improvement of science research provision with library and information services. All technological processes in the Central library and branch libraries of the CLS are maintained by the two-level complex automated system (AS NAUKA). The system was worked out and now is being supported by the LNS specialists. The scientific work is devoted to the problems of improvement of library resources management methods and to the problems of developing of scholar publications classification systems. The LNS RAS implements several science projects supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and Russian Foundation for the Humanities. These projects are aimed at creating information resources, typical means of the resources processing as well as at making the acquisition process optimal in order to improve the development of library collections. The Library participates in several Russian interdepartmental projects such as “Creation of the Russian Union Catalogues System”, “Setting up of a corporate Moscow libraries system” (the project is supported by the Soros Foundation), in academic project “Creation of an Integrated Information System (IIS) RAS and others. The LNS cooperates with many foreign organizations.