Zinaida Slepchenko was born on August 31, 1931, in the village of Tyumentsevo, Altai Territory. After finishing school in 1949, she entered the one-year courses at the Novosibirsk Regional Library. After completing her studies, Zinaida was sent to the position of head of the circulation department to the Iskitim District Library of the Novosibirsk Region, where she worked for the next 14 years.
Ms Slepchenko combined work with studies: in 1951, she completed the correspondence course of the Tomsk Library Technical School and continued her special education at the Moscow State Library Institute (now the Moscow State Institute of Culture).
In November 1964, upon a call from the Department of Culture, Ms Slepchenko moved to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, where she was admitted to the regional library as a senior librarian. Here she married and, when a year later her husband was transferred to a new place of service in Babrujsk of the Mahiliou region, Ms Slepchenko quitted her job.
She resumed her career as Head of the Library of the 22103 military base of Kisialievichy of the Babrujsk district in 1966, later – as librarian of the Babrujsk City Library named after N.V. Gogol.
Soon fate brought Ms Slepchenko to Minsk, to the State Library of the BSSR named after V. I. Lenin (now – the National Library of Belarus), where she was admitted to the position of Librarian in the Department of Processing and Catalogues in August 1966.
Having had 15 years of library experience at that time, Ms Slepchenko perfectly coped with her duties and a year and a half later was transferred to the position of Senior Librarian.
Zinaida Slepchenko is second from the left in the top row
In 1975, Ms Slepchenko was appointed Head of Alphabetical Catalogue Groups, and from October 1, 1979 she headed the Organization and Maintenance of Alphabetical Catalogues Section.
She provided advisory assistance to library specialists on the issues of catalogue maintenance, lectured on the rules of cataloguing at the Institute for Continuing Education (now the Institute for Continuing Education and Retraining of the Educational Institution "Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts"). Ms Slepchenko was the compiler of the methodological recommendations "Bibliographic description of the document", "How to choose a book" and "Organization of an alphabetical catalogue in public libraries".
Zinaida Slepchenko is in the middle in the top row
Ms Slepchenko took an active part in the public life of the library, for many years being a member of the editorial board of the wall newspaper.
The library management recognized her professionalism; in 1978, she was awarded the Diploma of the Ministry of Culture of the BSSR and the Belarusian Trade Union for Cultural Workers.
Ms Slepchenko retired in August 1991, having devoted 25 years of her professional life to the Library.
Unfortunately, contacts with Ms Slepchenko have been lost over time. As of today, it is known that she passed away. However, we do not have reliable information when this happened. We would like to thank everyone who has any information and photo materials and will help to supplement the material.
Bibliology Research Department
Read about the veterans and employees of the National Library of Belarus in the news section “Our History: a Portrait Gallery.”
