tant, averaging slightly more than 4,000, the total
number existing in 1971.

The greatest proportion of general libraries, by far, are those
associated with primary and secondary schools and those that serve the
general public. In addition, the state operates two national libraries,
and forty-three others function as part of university and other higher
level institutions. The total holdings of all these facilities exceeded
95 million volumes, and the number of registered readers in the public
libraries was reported to have reached almost 5 million in 1971. No
information was available as to the total annual circulation of books on
personal and interlibrary loan in the general library system, but the
two national libraries were reported to have circulated 55,000 volumes
in 1968, and the combined circulation of the forty-three
university-level libraries approximated 178,000 volumes in the same
year.

The two national libraries, the Library of the Academy of the Socialist
Republic of Romania and the Central State Library, together maintain
stocks in excess of 10 million volumes, and both function as central
book depositories. The Library of the Academy of the Socialist Republic
of Romania, a precommunist institution founded in 1867, holds special
collections of Romanian, Greek, Slavonic, Oriental, and Latin
manuscripts, maps, and engravings as well as rare collections of
documents, medals, and coins. The Central State Library, founded in
1955, also has important collections of books, periodicals, musical
works, maps, and photographs and, in addition, acts as the Central
Stationery Office and the National Exchange for books. It also issues
the National Bibliography and annual catalogs, which list all books
printed in Romania and the holdings of all foreign books in the state
library system.

The largest libraries among the universities, each of which holds more
than 1.5 million volumes, are those at Bucharest, Iasi, and Cluj. These
holdings include the book stocks maintained in the libraries of the
various faculties, hostels, and institutes associated with the
universities as well as the central university library itself. The
largest documentary library, the Library of the Medical-Pharmaceutical
Institute, operates ninety-nine branch facilities, and its annual book
inventory has been in excess of 1.2 million volumes.

FILMS

As in the case of other elements of the mass media, the small motion
picture industry has