By the beginning of 21 century intensifies the continuous problem of all libraries: on the one hand that is ensuring good physical condition of the rare books collection, and on the other hand – necessity of consideration the readers’ interests, who need to use those books. This complex issue of preservation and access in full measure now appeared in Tajikistan.

This issue became the main goal of this project on access to rare books and preservation of those books in the library of Academy of Sciences on Tajikistan, funded by the US Embassy in Tajikistan under the Ambassador Fund on cultural heritage preservation program.

Ambassador Fund on cultural heritage preservation program was launched by the Congress in 2001 and it is being implemented by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. The mission of the program is assistance to developing countries in preserving their cultural heritage including preservation of monuments, rare books, dance and musical arts masterpieces, valuable museum collections. Documental heritage preservation activities of the libraries excellently demonstrate international community efforts in world cultural heritage preservation efforts.

One of the largest book collections in Tajikistan is the collection of the Central Scientific library of Academy of Sciences of Republic of Tajikistan, numbering approximately one and a half million items. Among the most valuable book collections of the academic library is the Rare Book collection with over fifteen thousands books.

This electronic publication is devoted to the remarkable specimen from the library rare book collection, the “Russian-Tajik Dictionary”, published in 1899 in New Bukhara (Kagan city). The dictionary was compiled by Shoh-Khaidar Khatymtaev, published by I.Y. Baranovsky, and approved by the Russian Imperial Political Agency in Bukhara.
The book is missing the original book cover, and the current binding appeared much later. The absence of the fly-leaf and several last pages significantly complicates revelation of additional information about this publication. For example, we are not able to determine the number of copies of this edition.

This publication is from the private book collection of Professor M. Andreev, which was acquired by the Academy library in 1967 and represents a valuable addition to the regional studies literature. M. Andreev is well-known for his scientific publications on history, culture and ethnography of the Tajiks. Throughout his creative life M. Andreev collected books and historical sources, which resulted in a unique book collection devoted to the history and culture of the Central-Asian region.

It is not possible to determine how and when the “Russian-Tajik Dictionary” was added to the book collection of M. Andreev, but its presence only enriches the value of the collection, since the Dictionary can be considered as the first linguistic Russian-Tajik Dictionary in Tajik linguistic history.

The prominent Tajik scientists A. Mukhtarov and A. Saifullaev in their article in the newspaper “Communist of Tajikistan”, 1981, noticed the originality and significance of this Dictionary, unknown to the general reader audience. It is interesting to note that they were writing about a copy in the Russian State library in Moscow. We can be proud of the fact that one copy of this valuable edition is in the Academy library of Tajikistan, and we are able to offer readers the electronic version on CD, which creates favorable conditions not only for scientific research and study of this publication, but also gives an opportunity to the wider audience of readers to get acquainted with this dictionary, and use it.
Almost simultaneously with the publication of the “Russian-Tajik Dictionary”, in another part of the world, Paris, 1902, the book by H. Krafft about his journey to Russian Turkestan (Krafft, Hugues. A travels le Turkistan Russe. – Paris, 1902.) was issued.
This book is of a great interest not only because of the well written text, but mainly thanks to the large number of beautiful pictures, representing the everyday life and history of the people living in this region.

The Academy library took the responsibility of publishing in one CD this unique linguistic dictionary together with the photographic pictures of the people, living at that time, from the book of H. Krafft. One of our goals was to show how the people looked who spoke Tajik in the beginning of the 20th century, which gives us the right to name this electronic publication “Language and People”.