Working to ensure availability of Ukrainian catalog records.
We are researching and developing tools to help libraries and people access information about Ukrainian books. Our focus is primarily on records in libraries across the United States.
What we've worked on.
We are still in the early stages of what we want to accomplish with our project in the long term. These publications help show our early findings
Our primary data source was OCLC, a global library organization that compiles standardized library catalog and holding data for its members. We used it to obtain catalog records for books in the Ukrainian language, library holdings data for the books, and library type and location data (geographic coordinates). We used Tableau software to create the visualization. Note that holding data does not guarantee that books are available to the public for reading or checkout.
Explore Visualization
This poster highlights our early findings about the availability of Ukrainian language books in libraries across the United States. Presented at the 2024 Washington State University Academic Showcase and the 2024 WSU Everett Research Showcase.
View Poster
This poster highlights our early findings about the availability of Ukrainian language books in libraries across the United States. Presented at the 2024 Washington State University Academic Showcase and the 2024 WSU Everett Research Showcase.
View Poster
Why we're doing this.
The February 24th, 2022, full-scale military invasion of Ukraine has displaced millions of people. The invasion sparked a refugee crisis in Europe, with over 6 million Ukrainian refugees fleeing Ukraine, according to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency.
The United States responded to the Ukrainian refugee crisis through the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) initiative, which has allowed temporary refuge to over 170,000 refugees from the war-torn region.
Many libraries and librarians have struggled to respond to requests from this newfound community because of inadequate tools and a lack of experience with Cyrillic script. In most libraries with systems serving extensive Ukrainian communities, Ukrainian collections remain minimal, but we want to help change that.
Resources
The following resources are available to help you learn more about other organizations and initiatives that are working to help Ukrainian refugees.
Bring Ukrainian Books To The Library
The UNWLA is a non-profit organization that has been working to bring Ukrainian books to libraries in the United States.
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Purchase Ukrainian Books
Gabriella Reznowski, one of the leaders of this research project and a librarian at Washington State University, has compiled a list of Ukrainian books that can be purchased.
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Ukrainian Libraries in Wartime
This article from Library Journal discusses the impact of the war on Ukrainian libraries. It also shows why it is important to preserve Ukrainian books and records.
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UNWLA - Children's Book List
The UNWLA has compiled a list of Ukrainian children's books that are available to read and for libraries to purchase.
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WSU Library Guide
Gabriella Reznowski has created a guide to help librarians and people learn more about supporting Ukrainian refugees through library collections.
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Ukrainian E-Books
Over 9000+ Ukrainian e-books are available in Overdrive. You can search for books in Ukrainian and other languages.
Learn More