The Lubitz Collections
– Survey –
The following notes are intended to provide a rough survey about our quite considerable collections focusing on Leon Trotsky, Trotskyists and Trotskyism.
Our collections chiefly consist of the following components:
- Trotsky primary literature: Several hundred books and pamphlets authored by Leon Trotsky, chiefly published in English, French, German, and Russian plus a small portion of publications in Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and other languages. This part of our collection is described by a catalogue of Trotsky's Books which is available on the pages of TrotskyanaNet.
- Trotsky secondary literature: At the very core of our collection activties has been the gathering of 'secondary literature', resulting in a quite unique special library of published as well as unpublished works of all kind about the subject of Trotsky and Trotskyism. Altogether there are perhaps some 9,000 items about Trotsky and Trotskyism in our collection, ranging from quite ephemeral reviews and scanty articles to comprehensive Trotsky biographies like those by Isaac Deutscher, Pierre Broué, Jean-Jacques Marie and Tony Cliff. Since our selection criteria and some other details have been featured thoroughly within The Lubitz Leon Trotsky Bibliography of TrotskyanaNet, we should mention here only a few aspects concerning our collection of secondary sources:
- Our collection is internationally and multilingually oriented, containing writings from about 50 countries, written in some 25 languages; with regard to language our collection is restricted to European languages; thus - with a very few exceptions - publications in Japanese, Chinese, Arab and the like are, as a rule, not to be found.
- Although not aiming at 'completeness' or at comprehensiveness at any rate, one can undoubtedly speak of a high collection density. However, with regard to various translations and/or various editions of many of the major works on Trotsky, our collection is restricted, as a rule, to one respective edition.
- Our collection is 'neutral' insofar as it consists of writings by eminent scholars as well as by unknown authors, by friends and followers of Trotsky as well as by his very adversaries.
- Our collection is very broad with regard to the various forms or classes of publications; thus it includes for example:
- books, brochures, and pamphlets (some 1,600 items)
- dissertations, master theses and the like (some 300 items)
- articles, essays and similar contributions to collections, journals etc. (some 3,300 items)
- collections, festschrifts, conference proceedings etc. (some 50 items)
- book reviews, review articles (some 1,500 items)
- obituaries, biographical sketches and the like (some 1,500 items)
- bibliographies, catalogues, archive guides, inventories and similar tools (some 200 items)
- miscellaneous other publications (e.g. unpublished manuscripts, downloads from the WWW) (some 500 items)
- Most of the books and pamphlets in our collection are originals whereas most of the university works as well as of the journal articles are xerox copies; most of them have been put a cover, thus for example there are more than 80 bound volumes (named 'Trockij-Archiv') containing some 1,200 articles copied from various journals and other sources.
- Literature about Trotskyists: Our collections also comprise a considerable number of items about Trotsky's relatives, co-fighters and some of his renowned fellows and adherents from past and present, with special emphasis on (auto-)biographical literature, including a considerable collection of biographical sketches, obituaries and similar material about several hundred Trotskyists from various countries. Within the framework of TrotskyanaNet, we present Trotskyists' Name Files and Bio-bibliographical features about a number of Trotskyists represented in our collections, e.g. Pierre Broué and Louis Sinclair.
- Ernest Mandel Collection: This special collection comprises of more than 1,000 items of primary and secondary sources relating to Ernest Mandel. Within TrotskyanaNet, we provide, inter alia, an Ernest Mandel Bibliography listing several thousand items by and about this outstanding Trotskyist.
- Trotskyist serials: Trotskyist serials (newsletters, bulletins, journals) also form part of our collections. For more detailed information please consult either TrotskyanaNet's Summary survey or the Complete list of our serials holdings.
- Nonprint collectibles: Last not least it should be mentioned that we also are collecting some nonprint items relating to Trotsky and Trotskyists, such as video cassettes, DVD, audio cassettes, pictures, posters, sculptures, and memorabilia, which are partly listed or featured within the Collectibles chapter of TrotskyanaNet.
Most of the items in our Trotskyana collections have been filed, catalogued and indexed since the 1990s in some on-line databases which by now are containing altogether some 75,000 data records. The output of our collection and filing activities will successively be featured within the pages of the TrotskyanaNet website.
Wolfgang and Petra Lubitz, Aug. 2004
© by Wolfgang & Petra Lubitz 2004-2012 – http://www.trotskyana.net