Bolan was born in Russia and emigrated to the United States around 1915, where he became a naturalized citizen.
[3] Bolan's sales to the Library were primarily illustrative materials ("chertezhi i risunki"), from imperial collections.
[4] While working for Perlstein in 1941, Bolan sold 10,000 books to the collector Paul M.
[5] He also was the main supplier of Russian books to the collector Bayard L. Kilgour Jr., whose collection was later donated to the Houghton Library at Harvard.
[2] Following his retirement from the rare book trade, he joined Columbia University Libraries in October 1947 as Russian Bibliographer and Searcher.