January 28, 2000

An 'Enormous Treasure Chest' of Books Approaches Ruin in Russia's State Library

By BRYON MacWILLIAMS

Numbers and Cyrillic letters are scrawled in pencil on a slip of thin, grayish paper. The paper is curled into a plastic capsule the size of a can of hair spray. The capsule goes into a pneumatic tube, disappears, and seven seconds later is spit out on one of the 167 miles of bookshelves in the Russian State Library's 19-story building. The requested book is placed onto a nine-story-tall vertical conveyor, sent below, and whisked onto one of 122 wooden carriers that travel along a cable, like

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