The Library
Archives
Nabokov was known for personally inscribing his books with hand drawn images of butterflies. Several of these books are currently housed in archives. Archives also houses past Wellesley college theses. Browsing theses may inspire current students to purse a thesis as well as provide an interesting historical perspective of the deparment's intellectual development.
Media
Wellesley College Library has many online subscriptions to Russian-focused magazines and news sources. Students are encouraged to browse literary journals and international periodicals in the reading room on the first floor. The library also lends many Russian films, ranging from historical montages to literary films. The Music Library has numerous documentaries on the lives of Russian composers and several films of the Bolshoi ballet.
Research Resources
Wellesley College Library has created a guide to Russian and Russian Area Studies research. Additionally, they offer access to the Current Digest of the Russian Press (including Soviet and Post-Soviet Press) from 1949-present, which offers weekly English translations of Russian-language news sources.
Multi-Media
Pesnia (the Russian word for "song") is a web site that allows students to study the text of Russian songs. The collection of music in this site features the composers Glinka, Borodin, Balakirev, Rimskii-Korsakov, Kiui, Chaikovskii, and Rachmaninov. The texts of the songs are by poets such as Pushkin, Baratynsky, Nekrasov, Fet, and Lermontov.
Pesnia was first developed in the early 1990's by Susan Hafer Richman from Information Services and Russian Professor Thomas Hodge. The Pesnia software used Toolbook, a Windows-only application.