13th International Research and Practical Conference “Digital Century of Culture” 07.10.2014
29 September – 3 October 2014 the city of Sochi hosted the 13th International research and practical conference “Digital Century of Culture” devoted to modern ways of preservation of cultural heritage of Russia and concept of informatization in such establishments of culture as libraries, museums, archives, higher education institutions, etc. The conference was traditionally organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Library and the Russian Association of Digital Libraries.
The directions of priority for the discussions of the conference were the following ones: ways of informatization at diverse culture institutions of different regions of our country, practical solutions of the related questions and problems; acquaintance with the latest achievements in the sphere of computer and internet technologies (development of electronic resources and, in particular, of digital libraries, searching and storing information, and legal issues).
The conference gathered heads and staff members of largest establishments of culture, representatives of business community cooperating with establishments of culture, scientists and teachers of higher education institutions, specialists of the sphere of information systems and technologies.
The matters of particular attention of the participants of the conference turned out to be allied and applied branches accompanying and contributing to the processes of informatization, this including programme and technological and linguistic components. There were also discussed problems of quality of digital content, latest achievements in the field of algorithms of information search, access to and preservation of cultural heritage.
The majority of the speeches prepared by the participants of a high rank were devoted to project “National Digital Library” (NDL). The main principles and directions of work were highlighted by V.V. Duda, acting as the head of the Academy of re-teaching of specialists of art, culture and tourism. The director general of the RSL A.I. Visly, using parallels and analogues with the development of NDL, spoke on incorporated library associations abroad, on their specific characteristic features and experience that could be useful. S.V. Balandiuk, president of the “ELAR” corporation, in his speech demonstrated prospects of realizing charged services through NDL. Some questions concerning the National Digital Library resource were discussed later at the special meeting “Simply NDL”. They were problems of development of a new version of NDL and problems to solve in order to make the resource maximum accessible for the citizens of Russian through the common access point on the Internet.
A range of speeches surveyed the experience from abroad in organization of information electronic space and development of international projects. The matter of a great interest turned out to be problems of Copyright, which had not been completely solved yet. Firstly, it was an imbalance between citizen’s right to access information and the concept Copyright works which tend not to be for a broad public use. Numerous speeches prepared by the participants from remote regions emphasized the problem of lack of organizational and financial support from the government.
The speech by the representative of the Universal Scientific Library named after I.Y. Franko (Crimea) engaged interest of other participants. It was devoted to the development of the incorporated library catalogues and information resources and the common system of national informational services at the territory of the Crimea, which would contribute to the entrance of the republic into the legal, cultural and informational space of the Russian Federation.
The presentation prepared by the representatives of the Library of the Olympic Heritage and Educational Programmes of the International Olympic University also turned out to be of a prominent interest.
Within the framework of the “Digital Century of Culture” conference there took place the first seminar devoted to the problems of development and support of an internet store by a state financed establishment. The head of the Administrative department of management and monitoring service for clients of the RSL N.V. Avdeeva shared her ideas on the prerequisites and aims of the RSL internet store of services, and on the advantages of such a means of providing services for users. Deputy head of the Department of support of access to digital resources of the RSL T.A. Blinova acquainted the audience with the main stages of development of the RSL internet store and the main obstacles as well. She also gave several examples from the practice of its work. Deputy head of the sales department of the “Uniteller” company A.G. Morozov prepared a presentation on technological aspects of management and client’s services for internet stores offered by “Uniteller”.
All the events of the conference were broadcast directly on the official website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries www.aselibrary.ru, which was a chance for numerous internet users to take part in it.
 
The programme of the “Digital Century of Culture” conference is available on its official website http://www.elvek.ru/program/.
Video materials are available on the official website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries: