In the late 1920s, the New York Public Library received as gifts and on exchange a large collection of books, pamphlets and periodicals in the minority languages of the Soviet Union. These materials remained in storage in the Library's Annex—uncataloged, but not unclassified, albeit superficially—until the spring of 1994. These acquisitions also included materials in the languages of neighboring countries, as well as books for the well-established immigrant population in the Soviet Union speaking Estonian, Latvian, German, and Polish.