In response to the motto of 2016 “Open access is a way towards knowledge!”, all the events of the conference were devoted to the state of affairs and prospects of information technologies and Internet technologies in library and information sphere, to the innovations in the modern education technologies, to legal aspects of library work and of work of producers of digital information content, to digital libraries and digital information resources, etc.

Over 350 participants arrived at the conference to discuss most urgent questions of information services for the public provided by diverse structures (libraries, higher education institutions, publishing houses and book shops) and those ones of usage of modern computer technologies and their development. They were heads and leading specialists of largest libraries of the CIS states, specialists of library and information spheres, teachers of higher education institutions and other educational establishments, representatives of publishing houses, book – selling organizations, persons of science, culture and education of Russia and other countries, representatives of world producers of databases and many, many others.

Pursuing the modern tendencies of usage of technological innovations, for the first time there were organized direct online broadcasts of key events of the conference. Over 500 remote users of website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries www.aselibrary.ru managed to participate in the conference virtually and follow its opening ceremony, plenary meeting and other events of interest: the first annual meeting of the National Library Association “Libraries of the Future” (NALF), discussion panel “National Digital Library – asking questions, giving answers, advising and recommending”, open session “Digital Libraries and Digital Library and Information Resources – Tools, Technologies and Peculiarities of Usage”, Central �1 discussion platform of the conference “Information support for scientific research – discussing projects of the Federal target programme by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation” and the final plenary meeting summing up the results of the conference.

The conference itself was held at the tourist and hotel complex “Suzdal” which was kind to provide working areas for the conference and rooms for the participants to stay at.

The conference was organized and supported by:

• Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology (RNPLS&T),

• Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, 

• Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, 

• Federal Agency of Print and Mass Communication, 

• International Association of Users and Developers of Digital Libraries and New Information Technologies (EBNIT Association), 

• National Library Association “Libraries of the Future” (NALF),

• Moscow State Institute of Culture,

• Tomson Reuters Company.

The agenda of the conference included key reports on the projects of Federal target programmes of the information sphere by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, both those ones under way and those ones widely practised.

 

The opening ceremony of the conference took place 15 November 2016, and as a part of tradition, was started by the performance by the folk ensemble “Rosinka” of the Vladimir Regional College of Culture and Art. The first to address the audience was Y.L.Shraiberg, the director general of the RNPLS&T. In his speech “Library and Information Space – Main Challenges for Modern Society” he congratulated the audience with the twentieth anniversary of the conference, then he emphasized the unflagging interest towards the discussed problems and he awarded the ten laureates with the commitment diplomas. In continuation Yakov Leonidovich defined the principal matters to be discussed at the 2016 – year conference (open access to content, processing and preservation of “big data", formation of “associated data", problems of library and copyright legislation, open licences). In conclusion the speaker drew the attention of the public to the complex character of the problems to be dealt with, as well as their importance and urgency, he wished everyone success and fruitful experience.

From the State Duma there spoke S. Zhurova, first deputy chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. She greeted the audience and presented her speech “Libraries and 110^th Anniversary of Russian Parliamentarianism” where she described the contest of creative works “Role of Libraries in Forming Civil Society in Russia”. For the first time the contest had been announced at the “CRIMEA 2016” conference (167 requests for participation in the 2016 competition were addressed to the committee). In conclusion Svetlana Zhurova awarded with diplomas winners in the three following nominations: “History of Parliamentarianism Development” (handed to �. Anisimov, head of the sector of scientific library named after M.Gorky of St. Petersburg University), “Libraries and Parliament Democracy” (handed to N. Subbotina, head of the rural library from Volgograd region and to the creative group of the Tula Regional Library for the Blind, director �.�. Tchukanova) and “Publishing Projects devoted to the Development of Parliamentarianism in Russia” (handed to the creative group of the Komi National Library”, director �. Miftakhova). In addition there was announced the annual organization of the contest under the aegis of the National Library Association “Libraries of the Future” and with the support of the State Duma. The subject of the 2017 contest will be announced in June 2017 at the “CRIMEA 2017” conference.

From the governor of Vladimir region there spoke M. Kolkov, deputy governor in social policy. Mikhail Kolkov emphasized that the annual “LIBCOM” conferences within the Vladimir area, in Suzdal, made the heads of the territory acquire a new vision of the library problems, contributed to the change of their attitude towards development of a cultural component in the formation of personality and citizenship. One of the results of cooperation was opening of a modern module library in Bogoliubovo with the support of the M. Rudomino All Russia Library for Foreign Literature. In conclusion Mr. Kolkov thanked the organizers and the participants of the conference and awarded the director general of the RNPLS&T Y. Shraiberg with the honourable letter from the Department of Culture of the Administration of Vladimir region. Staff members of the RNPLS&T who helped to prepare and organize the conference and representatives of the libraries of Vladimir region were handed diplomas for contribution into the development of the consolidated cultural and information environment of the Vladimir region and in connection with organization of “LIBCOM–2016”.

The plenary meeting was continued by A. Visly, the director general of the National Library of Russia, with his speech “Unifying Resources of National Libraries”. He reported on the amendments in library legislation introduced in 2016 related to the development of the National Digital Library, to the legal deposit copies and peculiarities of work with them. The speaker invited everyone to discuss all the mentioned questions in details during specialized events of the conference and wished everyone not to remain indifferent.

The official part of the plenary meeting was concluded by V. Duda, the director general of the M. Rudomino All Russia Library for Foreign Literature, and his speech “International and Regional Projects of the Inostranka”. He reported on the accomplished projects (Frankoteka, module library of Bogoliubovo, renovation of the ground floor of the library) and on those ones which were under way supported by the M. Rudomino All Russia Library for Foreign Literature (module library of village Baturino (Ryazan region) and Centre of the Slavonic Cultures). Finally Vadim Duda invited everyone to participate in the IFLA conference which was planned in March 2017 in Poland.

The working day of the conference was continued by a range of parallel events, among which there could be named: the first annual meeting of library association “Libraries of the Future” (NALF), a specialized event of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent), Federal Institute of Industrial Property (FIIP) and of the All – Russian Patent and Technical Library (ARPTL) “Digital Patent and Information Resources of Rospatent and FIIP for Specialists of the Sphere of Innovative Activity”; the second branch conference “State of Affairs and Problems of Book – Publishing and Book – Spreading Activities in Russia. Prognosis for the Future”; meeting “Creating “Russian Book Chamber”, a specialized information centre on the basis of the branch of the Russian News Agency, for promoting cooperation of participants of the book branch”; meeting “Book Publishing, Book Spreading and Libraries – Problems, Solutions, Prospects”; Regular IRBIS School “Autumn Session 2016”; a specialized event of the Russian Academy of Sciences “New approaches to information support of research and developments of the directions of priority in science, technology and techniques of the Russian Federation”; discussion panel “National Digital Library – asking questions, giving answers, advising and recommending”.

A particular interest was excited by the platform of the first annual meeting of NALF and round – table discussion “Prospects of the Development of NALF”. The meeting was opened by Y.L. Shraiberg, the president of NALF, who greeted the participants and introduced moderators and organizers of the event. E. Lindeman, who was an organizer and a compere of the meeting, deputy director general of the RNPLS&T in scientific and methodology, education and publishing, and the NALF executive director, spoke with “Programmes and Projects of NALF – Modern State of Affairs”. The report gave information on the structure of NALF, its targets and tasks, together with the current problems requiring solution in the nearest future and with the programmes promoting realization of the main mission of the association. In conclusion Elena Vladislavovna announced the three new members who had just entered NALF.

Continuing his speech of the plenary meeting, Alexander Visly paused with details of the legislation amendments concerning library sphere. Mr. Visly commented on the Statute on NDL and the Library Law which regulated work with the legal deposit copy. He would also dwell upon the new term of a ‘legal deposit copy’ and regulations concerning work with it within the framework of the current legislation. The indicated problems provoked enthusiastic response from the audience. And for more detailed talk all the questions were addressed to the discussion panel “National Digital Library”, for all of them were likely to determine the development of the NDL and capabilities of work with the resource.

The speech “School Library – Vector of Professional Development for the Teacher Librarian” by E. Kudrina, rector of the Corporate university of the  Autonomous Non – Profit Partnership of Further Professional Education “CDIC – Educational Programmes” was found especially interesting. It raised the question of professional training for library staff, gave some statistics and analytical data proving the urgency of the matters touched upon.

Then there followed speeches by moderators and other participants of the platform with profile reports, and the meeting was finished by the round – table discussion “Prospects of the Development of NALF” formed as an unrestricted talk on the set subject sphere.

The final working event of the first day of the conference turned out to be discussion panel “National Digital Library – asking questions, giving answers, advising and recommending” which was organized with the support of NALF and the Russian State Library. A.I. Visly in his speech devoted to the problems of stocking the NDL collections reported on the announced participants of the project who were responsible for the stocking process, and on the probable changes connected with the change of the term of “digital legal deposit copy”. The discussion to follow raised the questions of selection and formation of digital resources, of their preservation and usage. �. Visly invited every interested person to participate in the formulation of the regulations concerning the process of stocking of the NDL collections.

 

16 November 2016 the conference was continued by the parallel events: Central �1 discussion platform of the conference “Information support of scientific research: social discussion of the projects of the Federal target programme by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation”; open session “Digital Library Systems for University Libraries and Libraries of Higher Education Institutions, Access to Digital Resources”; a specialized programme of Moscow State Institute of Culture “Trends of Modern Library Education”; round – table discussion and platforms “Associations of Producers and Users of Educational Digital Resources” and “Open Access – Environment for the Development of Science and Education”; NALF School; dissertation platform – meeting of the public Academic Council. There were also organized presentations of books, of the collection of research works and of a collective monograph. The working day of the conference was concluded by the quiz show “What? Where? and When? – in the library and information, book and publishing environment”. 

An event of significance turned out to be Central �1 discussion platform of the conference “Information support of scientific research: social discussion of the projects of the Federal target programme by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation” which was held by �. Poliakov, deputy director of the Department of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

The first to be dealt with was the “Scientific Archives” project. After the introduction by the compere, Y. Chekhovich, the executive director of the CC “Antiplagiat”, presented his speech “Scientific Archives – Results of the Projects and Capabilities of Systems”. It reported on the history of the project, stages of its development, its results and gathering digital content of the “Scientific Archives” which was composed of quality scientific documents only.  Yuri Victorovich also spoke on the possibility of including deposited works into “Scientific Archives” and on the coordination of work over the “Scientific Archives” data and of other projects realized by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Apart from that Mr. Chekhovich touched upon the problem of excluding the content of Scientific Digital Library “CyberLeninka” from the “Scientific Archives”. 

The theme of the “Scientific Archives” was continued by M. Goncharov, head of the Department of prospective research and specialized projects of the RNPLS&T. He offered all the participants of the conference to test the “Scientific Archives” by depositing their works (theses of conference speeches or any other materials). Then he invited the audience to get acquainted with the resource more closely by visiting the exhibition stand of the  RNPLS&T and to participate in the webinar on depositing documents into the “Scientific Archives” system (details are available on the official website of the RNPLS&T), which was planned to be held on 29^th November 2016.

The report of the group of authors from the Russian State Library (N. Avdeeva, �. Blinova, I. Gruzdev, V. Ledovskaya, G. Lobanova and I. Sus) “The Russian State Library and its Role in the “Scientific Archives” Project” was presented by I. Sus, head specialist of the RSL. There was emphasized the role of the Russian State Library and introduced the results of work over the project tasks. Besides, there were defined aims and goals of the implementation of the “Scientific Archives” system, there was described participation of the RSL specialists in the developed sets of methods used in computer – aided document ranking performed by the system, and there were given details on depositing documents. Apart from all that, the report reflected the results of the midterm tests carried out at different stages of project realization by the RSL specialists. 

The above mentioned speeches were a success with the public, which was witnessed by numerous questions and extensive answers.

The speeches and debates over, Mr Poliakov expressed his gratitude to the participants of the “Scientific Archives” project, for the work accomplished was immense, and the terms too short. Andrey Martinovich invited the scientific community to get acquainted with the “Scientific Archives” service, pointing out that the resource was open. 

The second project to be considered was “National Subscription”. The presentation was prepared by G. Evstigneeva, deputy director general of the RNPLS&T in library work, and �.V. Marinosyan, head of the department of the RNPLS&T. The speakers summed up the results of the work on providing access to scientific and educational organizations within the framework of the centralized subscription to information resources from the collections of the Ministry of Education and Science in 2016. There were also outlined the plans for the development of the subscription project and providing access to the resources for the years of 2016-2017.

The results of the work over the third project, together with its contents and stages, were reflected in the speech devoted to information and analysis system “Map of Russian Science”.

In the afternoon there was held the second meeting of the open session “Digital Libraries and Electronic Library and Information Resources – Tools, Technologies and Peculiarities of Usage”.  The comperes were N.V. Avdeeva, head of the Administrative department of management and monitoring service for clients of the RSL, and M. Goncharov, head of the Department of prospective research and specialized projects of the RNPLS&T. 

The speech “Developing Digital Resources of National Libraries” was pronounced by �. Visly, the director general of the National Library of Russia. He characterized the digitization process as it was in Russia from 2008 on and changes introduced by the legislation. Then the speaker emphasized that the laws to be in force since 2017 would entail the change of the digitization approach as a whole for the works of scientific and educational importance, while the introduction of an electronic legal deposit copy would make that process vague and ambigous. 

After that, “Digital Resources and Electronic Services of the Russian State Library” was presented by N. Avdeeva (RSL). The speech by Nina Avdeeva was devoted to the stages of development of the Digital Library of the RSL, to its collections and their contents, to the ways of access to the Digital Library of the RSL and to the additional electronic services supported by the RSL, among which there could be mentioned remote enrollment at the library and the RSL Internet store of services. Apart from that there were demonstrated the statistics data.

The meeting was continued by the reports concerning development of digital libraries. The two of them could be found particularly interesting: one by M. Goncharov (RNPLS&T) “Using Outsourcing in the Development of the Digital Archives of RNPLS&T” and the other one by V. Petov (“InfroRost” company) “InfroRost as a Platform for Realization of Digital Libraries and Library and Information Resources”. A specialized speech was presented by Marek Jędryka (“Pearson” company, Warsaw, Poland), which was entitled “The Best of Pearson in Space”. The guest from abroad reported on the projects supported by the “Pearson” company together with the M. Rudomino All Russia Library for Foreign Literature within the territory of Russia. 

 

The third working day of the conference, which was 17 November 2016, witnessed the third meeting of open session “Functionality of a Modern Library and Latest Programme and Technology Solutions”. The comperes of the section were B. Marshal, deputy director general of the RNPLS&T in science and informatization, the executive director of the EBNIT Association, and Tim Goverdovski, regional sales manager of the “Bibliotheca RFID Library Systems AG” company. The event presented 16 speeches and reports concerning the problems of stocking  libraries with digital resources of different levels, and formation of digital libraries, popularization of library work. 

The parallel events of the third day of the conference were round – table discussions and seminars, master classes and open lectures; there was organized the second session of “NALF School”.

The meeting summed up the results of the conference, there were pronounced words of gratitude to its organizers. As a part of the tradition, there was played a lottery, the main prizes of which were two certificates – one of a full payment of the participation fees for conference “CRIMEA 2017”, and the other one of a 50% payment.

Thus, the “LIBCOM” conference of 2016 proved once again the necessity of such events targeted at the search of solutions for the problems of modern experience of libraries and other organizations of the similar profile.

In parallel with the conference events there were prepared specialized exhibitions on the following subject directions: modern computer and Internet technologies in information and library sphere, digital information and electronic resources, publishing production, library equipment and materials, educational technologies, etc.

The cultural agenda of the conference included three excursion tours: the first one around Vladimir and its surroundings, the other one was around Suzdal with a visit to its Kremlin and monasteries, and the third one to the new module library in Bogoliubovo. During the conference there was organized concert “Snowstorm and Blizzard” where guests could hear pieces of poetry, songs and love songs on the verses by Sergey Klychkov and Sergey Yessenin performed by Larisa Novoseltseva. Then there was held an informal musical soiree closing the conference.

Videos of the main events of the Twentieth Jubilee International Conference and Exhibition “LIBCOM 2016” are available on the website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries www.aselibrary.ru.

The full programme of the Twentieth Jubilee International Conference and Exhibition “LIBCOM 2016” and other referent materials are available on its website over here: www.gpntb.ru/libcom16.