18-19 October the Russian State Library hosted the Annual meeting of heads of federal and central regional libraries of Russia. The event was organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Library, the National Library of Russia and M.Rudomino All Russia State Library for Foreign Literature.

 

After that the participants’ attention was drawn to summing up the results of the 4^th All – Russian contest “Librarian of the Year of 2016” and handing awards. The comperes of the awarding ceremony were representatives of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation V.V.Aristarkhov, who was first deputy minister of culture, and E.N.Guseva, who was deputy director of the Department of science and education, head of Library department. They were assisted by president of the Russian Library Association, deputy director general of the National Library of Russia V.R.Firsov, president of the National Library Association “Libraries of the Future”, the director general of the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology Y.L.Shraiberg and vice president of the National Library Association “Libraries of the Future”, the director general of M.Rudomino All Russia State Library for Foreign Literature V.V.Duda. In nominations “For professional bravery” and “Young librarian 2016” the award was handed to Darya Sergeevna Rytseva, head of the computer room at Model Library �20 of Centralized Mass Library System (Ufa, the Republic of Bashkortostan). The “Librarian of the Year of 2016” title was awarded to the two participants of the contest: Yevgeniy Victorovich Bondarev, the director of Municipal establishment “Libraries of Cheboksary Union”, and Nadezhda Ivanovna Kuznetsova, head of the Department of development and outer communications of the Central City Library of the State – Financed Institution “Omsk Municipal Libraries”.  The contest winners were handed diplomas and souvenirs.

 

Still, the working part of the event was started by the plenary meeting with reports prepared by the representatives of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and heads of federal and regional central libraries of Russia. There were touched upon main directions of national cultural policy in the library and information sphere. There were pointed out changes in federal legislation; there were also outlined possible prospects for the development of the branch in the modern economics condition. 

 

In her speech “The new in library legislation” deputy director of the Department of science and education, head of Library department of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation E.N.Guseva quoted current statistics data of the branch. She also gave characteristics to the formed tendencies and offered prospects for the development of libraries of the country in the light of the amendments to the principal federal laws concerning library sphere. 

 

The speech of the deputy director of the Department of Management of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation I.V.Menshova “Independent quality evaluation of services provided by establishments of culture” dealt with main targets and tasks of assessment procedure, there were demonstrated criteria of quality and enumerated regulations applied for the evaluation activity. 

 

The acting as director general of the Russian State Library V.I.Gnezdilov in his “Novelties at RSL in connection with the amendments in legislation” pointed out three key directions of work of the RSL which had been touched by the changes in library legislation: the RSL as the operator of the National Digital Library, maintenance of the register of rare and valuable books, receiving legal deposits in the electronic form. The speaker enumerated the problems aroused by the lack of state regulations and emphasized the importance of working out local regulations inside the RSL.

 

The director general of the National Library of Russia A.I.Visly presented his report “Organization of accessibility to NDL at Russian libraries”, in which he spoke on the current state of affairs at the National Digital Library. 

 

The director general of the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology Y.L.Shraiberg in his “National Library Association Libraries of the Future – prospective programmes and support of projects of the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for libraries” introduced to the audience main projects realized by the association. The speaker would emphasize the target of the association, which was attracting attention to key problems of the branch and solving the set tasks with the support of project activity and by involving interested participants. 

 

The report to folllow, prepared by the director of the Russian State Child Library M.A.Vedeniapina was entitled “'Bringing up a reader and securing the future', a new association of people of culture, art and enlightenment on introducing children to reading”. It dealt with the tasks and goals of the “Bringing up a reader and securing the future” association. The speaker pointed out that the attention of the government to the problems of child reading and their support provided not only in timely detection of the trouble but in scheming real steps towards its solution, too. 

 

The director general of M.Rudomino All Russia State Library for Foreign Literature V.V.Duda in his speech “International and regional projects of the Inostranka library for library network of Russia” demonstrated eloquently how unexpected and useful initiatives could find support among the interested people even in hard times. The opening of ARSLFL partner libraries was a live example of such a phenomenon. Apart from that the speaker described other undertakings of the library. 

 

  Within the framework of the meeting there also took place the following events: awarding winners of the 3^rd All – Russian Contest “Library Analytics 2016”, “Summing up the results of the 4^th All – Russian Contest ‘Best Professional Book of the Year’”,  round – table discussion “Questions of NDL development and interaction with its participants”,  round – table discussion “Today and tomorrow of library statistics – questions of departmental and corporate reporting”, the conference on the problems of future development of the United Digital Catalogue of Russian Libraries for regional libraries and the meeting of the Board of the Russian Library Association.

 

Video materials of the meeting are coming on the official website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries.