Date: 23.05.2014
The subject of the Conference – Libraries in the Year of Culture – gathered more than 600 library specialists and guests. This year Ryazan - the old city, wealth of culture and history - was chosen as a Library Capital of Russia. The city of Ryazan is associated with many outstanding figures, like poets and writers - Sergey Esenin, Saltykov-Schedrin, Polonsky, Solzhenitsin, scientists – Tsiolkovsky, Pavlov, Michurin, a philosopher and a museum affairs theorist N. Fedorov and many others. Today’s Ryazan is a regional center that develops with the priority given to science and culture. Thus in 2011 the new building of the city’s Gorky Regional Science Library was opened, which has given more interesting opportunities to the readers.
The Congress was visited by the Director of the Russian State Art Library Ada Kolganova, Deputy Directors of RSAL - I. Vaganova and N. Petrova, Head of the Lending Department - N. Ermolaeva, Head of the Iconography Complex Department - E. Khaplanova, Head of the Collection Management Department - O. Boldyreva, Chief Bibliographer - I. Titunova. The reason why such a sizable staff took part in the Congress was the relevance of the questions discussed and, of course, the relative closeness of Ryazan to Moscow. Our specialists took part in the plenary meeting discussing one of the most important topics – the development of Digital Science Library in Russia. They also participated in the following Sections: Electronic Resources and Information-Library Service, The History of Libraries, Library Management and Marketing, Valuable Hand-Written Documents and Rare Books, Preservation of Library Collections.
The meeting of the Section for Art and Museum Libraries was held on May 21st in the Ryazan State Regional Art Museum named after I.P. Pozhalostin which gave everyone the opportunity to feel the atmosphere of the local artistic culture.
The meeting gathered 30 specialists from federal and regional libraries, municipal and specialized libraries, representatives of museums and the Theater Union of the Russian Federation thus covering more than 10 regions of Russia. It was the first time when the Section was participated not only by art and museum libraries and departments but also by the Theater Union. 12 reports were made within the framework of the Section.
The main theme of the meeting was the problem of balance between commercial and free services in specialized libraries and art literature departments in universal libraries.
The first part of the meeting had a format of discussion. The participants elaborated general approaches to the economic activity in libraries of various kinds that deal with providing services in the sphere of arts and culture. In the course of the meeting the participants observed the legal, economic and professional aspects of commercial services and their correlation with free services. The contentious debate helped find common ideas on how to provide such kinds of service –in terms of amount, naming, quality and pricing.
The high relevance of the discussed subject was proven in the reports of I. Titunova, E. Khaplanova and N. Ermolaeva. Our specialists made a survey of commercial services provided by RSAL, analyzed the pricing and gave examples of readers’ demands.
The discussion was also joined by D. Poloznev, the Director of the Centralized Library System no. 3 of North-East Administrative District, Moscow and E. Pogosov, Deputy Director of the State Theater Library of Saint-Petersburg. They presented their ideas of the commercial services formation and the perspectives of development in Russian specialized libraries. The discussion revealed the problems yet unsettled – professional and legal – thus there were so many opinions on the subject.
The second part of the Section covered the specifics of work in special purpose libraries and new forms of art departments’ activity in regional libraries.
Exciting speeches made by the representatives of various Ryazan museums and the Ryazan Gorky Regional Science Library widely demonstrated how museums and art libraries actively contribute to the Russian culture.
Traditionally, the Section held a competition for the Best Report 2014. The winner, T. Sinyaeva, Head of the Ryazan State Regional Art Museum named after I.P. Pozhalostin, got a certificate and was granted training in Moscow’s special purpose libraries.
For more information of the Conference, please, visit http://www.rba.ru/
