Soviets Request Copies Of Harvard Collections

The deputy chief of the Soviet Central Archives requested last week photocopies of Soviet-related manuscripts from Harvard University libraries for deposit in his country's archives.

The archivist, Boris Ivanovitch Kaptelov, said yesterday he intends to request copies of the Leon Trotsky papers, as well as other papers, from Houghton Library. Kaptelov placed a request Friday for photocopies of several manuscript collections from the Schlesinger Library.

The Schlesinger Library yesterday turned down Kaptelov's request for other papers citing problems of manuscript control and literary rights.

The Soviet Union is not presently bound by an international copyright treaties, a complicating factor in the library's decision.

"We are willing to do it [permit photocopying for deposit in the archives] because of the problems of literary rights," Patricia Miller King, director of the Schlesinger Library, said yesterday.

Kaptelov requested from Schlesinger photocopies of parts of the manuscript collections of Vera Dean, Louise Stroughton, Mary Winsor and Eliza Bowditch van Loon, all of whom were American women who had travelled to or had special interest in Russia. The Schlesinger Library does not hold literary rights for several of the collections in question.

Kaptelov has not requested materials from Houghton Library, Rodney Dennis, Curator of Manuscripts for Houghton, said yesterday. "He was surprised at all the Russian manuscripts we had and was very interested in examining them," Dennis said.

If Kaptelov makes photocopying requests for deposit in the Soviet archives, however, Dennis said that they will probably be denied. The Harvard library system permits photocopies to individual scholars and these copies must be returned to Houghton upon completion of their projects.

"We're not allowed, in most cases, to put copies in other libraries," Dennis said. "For us, it would not be a question of literary rights, but of a private contractual agreement between the library and the parties involved."

Kaptelov, who is Deputy Chief of the Organization Section of the Central Archives of the USSR, is being financed by the International Research and Exchanges Board, under a scholar exchange program