The library was established in 1951 as a result of establishment of the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity of the USSR Academy of Sciences (renamed to the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1960).
Nowadays, the library is officially named as: Institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Department of the Library on Natural Sciences in the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology".
The library is based on library stock of the V.M. Bekhterev's Institute of Brain, the I.P. Pavlov's Institute of Physiology and Military-Medical Academy.
The library was established by A.P. Petrovskaya, she also was the first library director. The library was governed by Z.I. Pliaskova from 1960 to 1976. S.V. Aronova and O.N. Grigorieva made a high contribution in library establishment, making catalogues, bibliographic card-files, S. G. Zbar is head of the library from 1976 to nowadays.
The library occupied an area with total surface of 282 m2, where basic book depository, open access fund and subscription area occupies 190 m2, depository fund is 72 m2, computer class and exhibition of new revenues is 30 m2,
The computer class has four modern computers with Internet access and two copiers. Besides this, there are two computers for an internal library job.
The library fund has 62,300 books and periodicals, the foreign journals contain more than half of the fund (more than 33,000 units). The fund contains a literature on human and animal higher nervous activity, physiology of central nervous system, pathology of nervous system and higher nervous activity, psychology and psychophysiology, applied physiology, pharmacology, theoretical biology and medicine as well as encyclopedias, vocabularies and reference books on many subjects. The library has fund of rare tomes published in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries that contains more than 1,000 monographies and 700 units of periodicals. This fund contains in-life editions of classics of biology, physiology, psychology, works of V.M. Bekhterev, N.E. Vvedensky, I.M. Sechenov, A.A. Ukhtomsky, PhD theses defended when I.P. Pavlov was alive.
The PhD theses fund defended on the Institute PhD Theses Council contains about 600 units. A stand-alone part of the fund are theses abstracts on the Institute subjects. The fund is gatherted by LNC RAS and by the scientist presents.
The catalogue and card-file system: alphabet card-file of books in Russian and English, the systematic catalogue of books, topography catalogue, catalogue of Russian and Foreign periodicals, PhD theses and PhD theses abstracts catalogue, a catalogue of rare periodicals. The card-file of works of the Institute employees (books, papers in Russian and in English since 1951) is also electronic since 2001.
If the book is absent in the fund, a reader can borrow it from another libraries: the library serves the Institute employees on Inter-library abonement, (ILA) sending requests to LNC RAS by the Internet. The library's reading hall also serves employees from the Academy of Sciences and enother institutions.
The daily exhibitions of new revenues that are located in the computert class contains current journal issues, book novelties as well as PhD theses which defense is planning in the Institute in the nearest future. Subject exhibitions are organized in the anniversary dates. The library employees provide a information-bibliographic search on the library database in the Internet. The institute employees can access to full-text Russian and Foreign papers in the library computer class.
The library bibliographies (in Russian)
Библиография работ по электроэнцефалографии(1875-1963гг.)/Сост.: П.И.Гуляев, З.И.Плясова ,С.Б.Аронова.-М.:Наука,1965.-208 с.
Библиографический указатель к "Журналу высшей нервной деятельности им.И.П.Павлова"(1951-1960)/Сост.: А.П.Петровская, З.И.Плясова,М.Н.Валуева//ЖВНД.-1962.Т.12,вып.6.-С.1112-1152.
Методики исследования высшей нервной деятельности человека: Библиогр.указатель отечеств.лит.(1900-1960)/Отв.ред. Э.А.Асратян; сост.А.П.Петровская, З.И.Плясова,С.Б.Аронова.-М.,1963.-91 с.
Методики исследования условнорефлекторной деятельности у животных: Библиогр. указатель работ, изданных на рус. языке с 1900 по 1971гг.-М.:Наука,1974.-228 с.
Электроэнцефалографические исследования в клинике: Библиогр. работ по электроэнцефалографии (1928-1963)/Сост.: П.И.Гуляев, З.И.Плясова, С.Б.Аронова.-М.,1966.