19 – 23 September 2016 there took place 15^th jubilee International research and practical conference “Digital Age of Culture” on board a ferryboat “Princess Anastasia”.

 

The ferryboat cruised from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, then Stockholm, then Tallinn, then back to St. Petersburg. The conference was organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Library, the National Library of Russia and the Russian Association of Digital Libraries (NPP “ELBI”) supported by the general sponsor the Samsung Electronics Rus company. The scientific agenda of the conference included a plenary meeting, two round – table discussions, one of which was “National Digital Library” and the other one was organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Besides, there took place the regular session of the annual research and practical conference of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries (NPP “ELBI”). The “Digital Age of Culture” was started 20 September 2016 by the plenary meeting where the head of the Administrative department of management and monitoring service for clients of the RSL N.V.Avdeeva read to the audience a greeting letter by the minister of culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky.

The first speeches to tune the conference were "Welcome to the world of digital culture, or 25 – year – service for Russian society” by a representative of the general sponsor of the conference the Samsung Electronics Rus company, head of the project group Sergey Anatoliyevich Kirichenko and “Unifying Electronic Resources of Russian Libraries” by the director general of the National Library of Russia, supervisor of the “National Digital Library” project at the Russian State Library Alexander Ivanovich Visly. In his speech Sergey Anatoliyevich gave details on the projects carried out by the Samsung Electronics Rus company in collaboration with different establishments of culture and arts, science and education of the Russian Federation, and also touched upon their financial and technical support for the programmes. The speaker marked that by contributing to the development of culture, science and education the Samsung Electronics Rus company were trying to create in Russia a solid base for the development of the society in the new digital world.

Alexander Ivanovich Visly in his speech highlighted the changes taking place in the library sphere which had been prompted by two legal acts: “About changes in Federal Law “About libraries” concerning creation of a federal state information system ‘National Digital Library’” and “About legal deposits of documents” and problems arising with their application. Apart of that, the speech dealt with the following aspects of work of the NDL resource: support of work of the NDL distributed system for the participant libraries and questions of establishing volume and contents of the documents transferred to the NDL for libraries of the “obligatory participant” category. The plenary meeting was continued by the following speakers: Tatyana Alexandrovna Blinova (Russian State Library) with "Modern reader – needs and demands, and what it means for library’s client’s service”; Natalia Fedorovna Afanasyeva (Moscow Kremlin Museums) with “Digital collections in Moscow Kremlin Museums”; Ekaterina Leonidovna Kudrina (Corporate University of Autonomous Non – Profit Organization of Further Education “CDIC – educational programmes”) with “Centre of Development of Interpersonal Communication and Education Programmes in the Age of Electronic Technologies”; Natalia Arkadiyevan Timofeeva (The Perm State Krai Universal Library named after A. M. Gorky) with “Formation of electronic resources of the Perm region (Perm digital library): a current status, problems and prospects”; Andrey Valentinovich Kuzmin (ALANIS Software Co. Ltd) with “Automatic library stock scan processing. A case study of creation of a software solution in cooperation with the Russian State Library” and others.

All in all the first day of the conference included 17 speeches.  

Within the framework of the plenary meeting there was held a specialized event of the Second All – Russian Contest of Library Innovations “Innovations in Libraries – Best Experiences of 2015”. The final report "Library Innovations: Promotion and Partnership (by Results of the Second All-Russian Contest)” was presented by Tatyana Yevgeniyevna Dmitrieva, head of the Financial and Economic Department of the Russian State Library. She gave details on the aim of the contest, on the results of the 2015 event and on the prospects. Each of the winners also presented their projects. Inna Victorovna Yurik, deputy library director of Belarusian National Technical University, spoke on “ ProBNTU as a System of Promoting Scientific and Creative Potential of University”. Elena Nailevna Kovalenko, chief librarian of the Centralized Library System of Norilsk, reported her “Scientific and Technical Creativity of Youth in the Library”. Elena Grigoriyevna Smutneva, head of Coordination and Methodology Division of Novosibirsk Regional Library for Children, presented “Project "WikiSibiriaDa": Our response to the challenges of the times”.

 

 

Tatyana Blinova

 

 

 

 

 

21 September 2016 the participants of the 15^th International research and practical conference “Digital Age of Culture” visited the National Library of Sweden. 

The participants’ delegation was met by the deputy director general on science Mr Lars Ilshammar. Together with his colleague Lars Bjork they spoke on the history of the library, the structure of the library and its collections, also about work with readers in the modern times, plans for the future and about the realization of the main mission of the library, i.e. preservation of cultural heritage. 

Apart of all that the audience were told about the digital collections of the library. In conclusion of the delegation’s visit there was held an excursion around the National Library of Sweden.

 

The website of the National Library of Sweden: http://www.kb.se/english/.

The official visit to the National Library of Estonia was paid 22 September 2016. The representatives of the national library organized for the delegates of the 15^th Research and practical conference “Digital Age of Culture” an excursion around this temple of culture, for that was the impression produced by the interiors of the library. 

The participants of the conference walked around spacious halls, cozy reading rooms and expositions. They also saw the “Rare Book Collection” department.

Afterwards Mz Tatyana Palav demonstrated and commented upon Christine Rodd’s presentation “National Library of Estonia – Digital Collections and Services”. She spoke on the functions performed by the National Library of Estonia and the work carried out in organizing readers’ service.  

 

At the national library the director general of the National Library of Russia Alexander Ivanovich Visly met the director general of the National Library of Estonia Yanne Andresso. 

 

Website of the National Library of Estonia: http://www.nlib.ee/en.

 

As souvenirs, the national libraries of the three foreign countries were gifted with the albums on the Russian State Library, the editions by V.V.Nazarevsky “History of Moscow” and the information materials of the 15^th Research and practical conference “Digital Age of Culture”.

 

The experience of the “Digital Age of Culture” conference and the achieved results inspire hopes that the electronic future of the Russian science and culture should remain at the same high and respectable level due to close and fruitful collaboration of different establishments of culture, science and education with leading IT companies. And for the Russian society, cultural heritage would be preserved and augmented, and would become broadly and objectively accessible.

The scientific agenda of the conference is here http://www.elvek.ru/programma_konferencii/.

 

The video and information materials of the conference are available on the official website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries http://www.aselibrary.ru.

 

While on this link you are welcome to access the full report of the 15^th International research and practical conference “Digital Age of Culture”.