The Russian State Library as a National Bibliographic Agency

The history of the Russian Book Chamber — the world’s first specialized state institution established to carry out registration, current bibliographic accounting of domestic publications and their archival storage — is briefly described. Since 2013 it has been a branch of the Information Telegraph Agency of Russia (ITAR-TASS). In 2021—2022 the decision of the Government of the Russian Federation to transfer the functions of this branch to the Russian State Library (RSL) was implemented. The organizational aspects of this process are covered. As a result, RSL acquired new functions (accounting, notification, perpetual storage of the required copy) and a new status — the National Bibliographic Agency of the Russian Federation (NBA), which now need to be fixed in legal documents. The importance of coordination and methodological functions of the NBA for the full functioning of the entire system of national bibliography of the country is especially noted.