29 May, 2018, the Russian State Library hospitably opened its doors for the thirty-sixth time to welcome the specialists of the establishments of culture, science and education.

 

The plenary meeting was started by the acting as the director general of the RSL Vladimir I. Gnezdilov. In his greeting speech Vladimir Ivanovich pointed out that for the moment of speaking the RSL was a leading scientific research establishment in library science, bibliography science and bibliology, as well as methodological, research and information, cultural and educational centre of federal and international importance. The mission of the RSL was to collect, keep and provide access to the universal funds of documents representing knowledge of the mankind and relating to Russia and its national interests. The speaker marked that there was under way the strategy of the development of the RSL for the years of 2019-2024 which was basing on the conditions of the changing geo-political, economic and social situations. There was coming evident the necessity to understand the aims and tasks of the library in a new way. Till the end of 2018 there was going to be prepared the document stating the strategic and conceptual aspects of the development of the library for the nearest years, it would perform the ‘road map’, with the exact agenda, results to be achieved and scores.

 

After that Mr Gnezdilov gave a brief talk on the major directions and forms of work of the RSL. In the contemporary world the national library was functioning in a system-building way as related to the whole library space of the state. The RSL of that day was the operator of the National Digital Library (NDL) comprising over 4 million items in its collections. Over 6 thousand organizations participant in the project had set connection to the NDL with their digital reading rooms. The speaker attracted the audience’s attention to the fact that the connection to the NDL was free. While the access to the full texts of the documents of the Digital Dissertation Library of the Russian State Library (DDL RSL) was realized on the paid basis, after entering the special contract and by way of opening Virtual Reading Rooms.

 

Another aspect of importance in the activities of the RSL remained work over the tables of library and bibliographic classification (BBK). There had been edited 6 issues that including tables for child and teenager libraries.

 

The RSL was developing the system for remote reader service. In that sphere the RSL was an undisputable leader among the organizations at the federal level and within the CIS states. The year of 2017 witnessed requests accepted at the RSL from the 20 world states. At the United Nations organization, the RSL was representing interests of the whole library community of Russia. And the RSL was hosting the headquarters of the Library Association of Eurasia.

 

The significance of a national level was as well manifested in the fact that the RSL was keeping the All – Russian collection of dissertation theses in practically all specializations. Digitalization of the collection of dissertation theses remained a task of importance for the library.

 

Since the year of 2016 the RSL had been registering old and valuable books in the All – Russian Compedium of Rare and Valuable Books. Of course, there raised the questions like who and where was to determine whether a book was valuable or not. As a possible solution there was offered to create an expert council at the RSL which could be responsible for such decisions. Still another aspect to be considered was that a book could only be evaluated by an expert holding it in his/her hands. A book could not be properly assessed from a distance, by its photo. And there was decided to start expert councils in work with valuable books on the basis of large libraries possessing staff of high qualification. Besides, there was taken a decision to involve regional centres of valuable books registration, as well as experts with licence of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (who would be authorized to take their decisions individually, beyond councils). The specialists of the RSL were ready to provide expert support of that activity. As soon as the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation released the necessary regulation, the RSL would start to accept requests from other establishments and introduce documents into the Compedium.

 

Then, the Publishing Centre of the RSL editing professional literature for librarians was among the leading ones in the country.

 

In 2017, the 95^th anniversary was celebrated for the Educational Centre training staff not only for the RSL, but for other libraries, too. The remote training course was in a great demand. The centre had accepted students from 13 higher education institutions for practice. The RSL subdivisions were organizing diverse research and practical classes for specialists of different spheres of culture, science and education on a regular base.

 

The RSL had a huge exchange and reserve fund at its disposal, for there were revealed doublet editions which would be transmitted to other Russian libraries. In case those editions turned out to be redundant in other Russian libraries too, such editions would be sold through the Internet store of services of the RSL.

 

In conclusion Mr Gnezdilov emphasized that the RSL was carrying out works connected with standardization in library sphere, it was also developing scientific basis of library work. There were organized cultural and leisure events (such as excursions, exhibitions, etc.) as well. Still the main task for the Russian State Library there remained raising citizens’ intellectual potential in the conditions of digitalization of economics.

 

Natalia V. Yaytsova, deputy head of the Library Division of the Department of Science and Education of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, was the next speaker to greet the audience. Natalia Victorovna expressed her hope that the Open House would remain for the participants bright with informative discussions and interesting meetings, and it could inspire their new achievements. Ms Yaytsova congratulated everyone with their professional holiday which had just passed (Library Day), after that she read out the greeting letter by Vladimir Medinsky, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation. The minister emphasized the fact of libraries’ being spiritual and cultural centres of the nation, as well as space for leisure and professional establishment, and also places for every-day communication. Tens of thousands librarians were working all over Russia, and they all could boast of being real professionals and enthusiasts. Mr Medinsky wished the participants of the Open House to achieve personal success, to start new and interesting projects, to remain healthy and to obtain welfare.

 

Mikhail D. Rodionov, deputy director general of the RSL in NDL development, presented his speech “Russian Common digital environment of knowledge – concept, resources, results to be achieved”. The speaker saw the development of the Russian common digital environment of knowledge (ERPZ) as the task of the utmost importance for creation of the information environment favourable for personality establishment. The ERPZ had to be founded on the basis of the digitized book, archives and museum collections united within the National Digital Library and national digital archives of different spheres of human activities. Creation of such environment was necessary for Russia to obtain one of the leading positions in the digital economics. ERPZ would help to ensure Russian citizens’ rights for objective, true and safe information. The issue was especially important for school children and students, for the knowledge they found on the Internet would often turn to be not exactly right and even untrue. According the statistics data revealed by American researchers, approximately 90% of articles in medicine available in free access were targeted at promoting products of pharmaceutical companies and not at all at presenting full and objective information. Access to reliable information was a topic urgent not only for Russia, but for other nations, too. That was the reason the USA and Europe were developing the projects like the ERPZ of ours themselves. Digital economics presupposes high speed of information processing, thus the access to it had to be maximally easy. The RSL was planning to create a special department which would deal with the ERPZ and its development. The item of major significance there remained legal support of the project, for the copyright laws needed amendments in order to secure adequate cooperation with authors and right-owners.  

 

Professor Margarita Y. Dvorkina, doctor of Pedagogy, chief researcher of the Centre of studying problems of library development in the information society of the RSL, presented her speech “National Standard Library and Information Service – Terms and Definitions”. Standardization was one of key factors influencing modernization and social and economic development of the nation, that including library life. The RSL was responsible for developing standards of library sphere, and the object of standardization was library and information work. In 2017 the Centre of studying problems of library development in the information society of the RSL had started developing terminology standard “Library and Information Service”. The work group on the development of the standard involved representatives of largest libraries (of the Russian State Library, of the National Library of Russia, of Presidential Library, of the Library in Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences and of the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology), as well as teaching staff of St.Petersburg Institute of Culture. While developing the document, there were considered international standards from which a range of terms was taken, together with national GOST standards.

 

The necessity of the standard development was based on the fact that the very sphere of library and information service had not been standardized for that moment, and there existed no common opinion concerning meanings of its terms. Regularizing the system of terms and determining new notions connected with telecommunication technologies were the main targets of the standard development. The first edition of the standard had been spread among the Russian libraries in April 2018. And for the moment of speaking there was being prepared its final version based on the received feedback.

 

Milena L. Sukhotina, head librarian of the Centre of studying problems of library development in the information society of the RSL, spoke with “Website of the RSL Rosinformcultura as a source of professional information”. In order to develop their professional competences, librarians needed reliable, relevant and substantial sources of information on different spheres of library work. In May 2016, the RSL had launched website Rosinformcultura (“The Russian System of Research and Information Support of Cultural Activities”). The website would publish documents related to the library work and culture as a whole, that including materials prepared at the RSL (for instance, digital periodical “Libraries in the Age of Changes”). For the moment of speaking the resource included 1.250 full text documents. And the issues of the “Libraries in the Age of Changes” were available for users to download on their computers. The modern library would more and more often be viewed as a certain “third place" (not a home and not a job), and that was the matter the last issue of the edition was devoted to. Besides, the website offered capabilities of work with database “Library Work and Bibliography” containing over 23 thousand items. Users could look for the items they were interested in and make compilations, too. Librarians were offered “Union catalogue of editions and unpublished documents of regional libraries of Russia” which could boast of over 6 thousand items. Section “Internet Projects of Russian Libraries” introduced most significant and interesting resources developed by national libraries to users of Rosinformcultura. On the website database “Books in Russian edited abroad, 1927-1991” was also available. The database was developed on the basis of the collections of the RSL and of some other organizations, and for the moment of speaking it counted over 20 thousand entries. Users could search for documents in the archives of full-text and bibliographical resources. Section “For colleagues” contained information concerning diverse events, presentations and other useful materials. For the specialists of the establishments of culture there were held webinars devoted to the role of science in the development of libraries and to the methodology and technology of information work. There were also organized broadcasts of research and practical seminars of the RSL.

 

Lyudmila N. Zaytseva, deputy head of the Finance and economical department, head of the Department of summary planning and reporting of the RSL, presented public report of the RSL for the year of 2017. The public report was offered to be considered as a way of library’s leaving the framework of close professional community. The report reflected all the major activities of the RSL, and the text was accompanied by colourful illustrations. The main peculiarity of the report of 2017 was the common photo of the RSL staff represented in the edition. The work of the library was marked with letters of appreciation by partner organizations and readers. The report affirmed plans for further development of the RSL. The appendices to the report included infographics, illustrated calendar plan of events and a lot of other materials. The report had been a result of the collective work of all the staff of the RSL.

 

Nina N. Golodnova, candidate of History and head of the Scientific and research centre of development of library and bibliographic classification of the RSL, demonstrated the audience the 7^th issue of BBK medium tables in Natural sciences which was being prepared for print. That edition completed the lacking fragment of the modernized BBK tables, and since that time the whole apparatus of classification was available for librarians’ usage. There had been upgraded parts “Ecology and Environment Protection”, “Probability Theory. Mathematical Statistics”, “Mathematical Cybernetics and Discreet Mathematics”, as well as several others. Changes in wording had caused redistribution of documents, and when working with the tables that fact had to be considered. Apart from that, there appeared new sections, such as “Condensed Matter Physics” or “Nanochemistry. Supramolecular Chemistry”.

 

The collection of guidelines “Systematization in tables of library and bibliographic classification” was being prepared for publication. It could be of help for librarians with orientation across the new denominations. The book viewed complex cases of systematization and gave recommendations.

 

The plenary meeting over, the participants of the Open House were offered the following events:

- meeting with a well-known artist, author of theatre posters Vitaly Y. Volf with presentation of his book “A Sample Happy Life. An Artist’s Recollections”;

- Roundtable discussion with representatives of Dissertation Councils, of the RSL and of the Central Scientific Medical Library of Sechenov University;

- Roundtable “Interlibrary service in the modern information and library environment”;

- Roundtable devoted to the problems of public reporting by libraries;

- Seminar “Reference and bibliography service – new challenges”;

- Seminar “Organization of labour regulation in library”;

- Seminar “Current SIBID standards for library work”.

 

The event of a particular interest turned out to be the roundtable discussion with representatives of Dissertation Councils, of the RSL and of the Central Scientific Medical Library of Sechenov University organized by the Department of Dissertations of the Russian State Library. The discussion was devoted to the problems of presenting legal deposit copies of dissertation theses in the printed and electronic forms. Irina L. Sakirko, head of the Administrative department “Separate Division Khimki Complex”, head of the Department of Dissertations of the RSL, was the moderator of the discussion. As it had been mentioned before, the Russian State Library was a national repository of dissertation theses in practically all the specializations. Though amendments to Federal Law � 77-FZ “About Legal Deposit Copies” dated by 29.12.1994 had been over one and a half years in force, the representatives of Dissertation Councils would go on addressing questions to the RSL connected with those changes in legislation.

 

Before starting the roundtable discussion, Vera M. Ledovskaya, head of the Sector of Studying Documents of the Department of prospective development of the Administrative department of management and monitoring service for clients of the Russian State Library, announced the two coming events which could turn out to be interesting for the representatives of Dissertation Councils:

- Webinar of 6^th June, 2018 “Plagiarisms in research documents. From the experience of the RSL specialists” prepared by the staff of the Administrative department of management and monitoring service for clients of the RSL together with the LC “Antiplagiat”. Details on the webinar are available on https://events.webinar.ru/1176571/1142471,

- International Research and Practical Conference “Revealing Plagiarisms 2018” (25-26 October, 2018, the RSL), devoted to means and methods of plagiarism detection and results of operating with them. Details on that event are available over h�re www.oz2018.ru.

 

The Russian State Library was one of the organizers of those events.

 

Irina L. Sakirko spoke on “Order of presenting legal deposit copies of dissertation theses (the original one and one in the electronic form) after the defence, together with the relevant documents, to the Russian State Library”. According to 77-FZ, dissertation theses were considered to be unpublished documents, and document producers had to present their legal deposits (that including eLDs) within thirty days since the defence took place and the scientific degree was awarded. The Russian State Library accepted works in all the specializations including Medicine and Pharmacy. Ms Sakirko pointed out that the legal deposits of the dissertation theses in Medicine and Pharmacy had to be transmitted not only to the Russian State Library, but to the CNMB (Central Scientific Medical Library) too. After that Irina Lvovna reminded the audience that since the year of 1992 author had had to transfer legal deposit copies of their dissertation theses under the stamp “For service use”, and since 1^st January, 2017, their electronic copies as well.

 

Meanwhile the year of 2017 saw legal deposits in the electronic form to enter the RSL collections through the information system of the Centre of Information Technologies and Systems of the Executive Authorities (CITiS). And at the same time the library was developing the information system of its own entitled “System of acceptance of legal deposit copies of printed works in the electronic form”. Since 1^st January, 2018, the Russian State Library was accepting legal deposits of dissertation theses in the electronic form through that system. The speaker emphasized the fact that in case authors were tardy to transmit their legal deposits to the RSL (together with its electronic copy) the System would not be capable to accept the copies produced in the previous years. In order to settle down that situation document producers had to contact specialists of the Department of Dissertations of the RSL.

 

Summing up all the aforementioned, Ms Sakirko distinguished the following aspects for document producers to bear in mind:

- Presenting legal deposit copies was free of charge;

- Legal deposits which turned out to be defective had to be replaced within one-month time for the appropriate copies;

- For being tardy with transmitting legal deposits document producers were going to be charged.

 

Alexey S. Starkov, deputy director of the Central Scientific Medical Library of Sechenov University (CNMB), told the audience how to present legal deposit copies of dissertation theses (the original and the electronic copy) to CNMB. Every year the library would accept over 3 thousand dissertation theses in Medicine and Pharmacy. The rules for transmitting legal deposits were similar with those ones accepted at the RSL. In the nearest time the CNMB was planning to set the information system for accepting legal deposits in the electronic form similar to the System of acceptance of legal deposit copies of printed works in the electronic form developed at the RSL. Mr Starkov's colleague, Lyubov A. Matiushenkova, deputy director of the Central Scientific Medical Library of Sechenov University (CNMB), who was the next to speak, described the difficulties numerous Dissertation Councils had had to face. In connection with the amendments to 77-FZ coming into force, several Councils had started sending documents only to the RSL while the regulation demanded to send them to the both of the libraries. Moreover, legal deposit copies sent to the CNMB through the “Russian Post” would more and more often be returned back to the Dissertation Council without presenting grounds for such actions. Ms Matiushenkova appealed to the representatives of Dissertation Councils to send dissertations for the second time and for the third one if necessary in case they happened to be returned in such a way.

 

Anton A. Yerpuliov, head of the Department of organization and management of the collections of the RSL Digital Library, spoke on “Presenting the System of acceptance of legal deposit copies of printed works in the electronic form of the Russian State Library”. The System of acceptance of legal deposit copies of printed works in the electronic form of the Russian State Library (hereinafter the System) was available on https://oek.rsl.ru. Authors could only download their legal deposits through Personal Accounts of Document Producers. In order to request for registration in the System, document producers had to perform the following actions: to fill in the form of the request giving the requisites and contact information, then sign the form with the qualification signature. The check being completed, the System created the Personal Account of Document Producer for the term of one year. The System supposed a branch approach to creation of Personal Accounts. Thus, if an institution had several Dissertation Councils, users registered the head Personal Account first of all, and after that they created ‘subaccounts’ for each of the councils. Then Mr Yerpuliov gave details on each of the stages document producers had to go through in transmitting their eLDs. He also pointed out the demands to the document files. PDF format turned out to be admitted for electronic versions of dissertation theses, while all the rest of works had to be transmitted in the PDF/A format only. Each of the files downloaded was checked automatically for integrity, document format, presence of text layer and quality of picture resolution. Then electronic copies of documents were checked by operators of technical control. Those checks completed, the files were transmitted to the archives, and the users of the System could see that status in part “Request Archives”: on the right side of the information about the document there appeared sign “Accepted to the archives” or “Accepted to the DL” (Digital Library). For the moment of speaking dissertations were accepted to the Digital Library. Anton Andreevich emphasized the fact that website https://oek.rsl.ru contained answers to frequently asked questions in part “Help and support”. Apart from that, the RSL specialists were always ready to help and give consultation in different aspects connected with the process of transmitting eLDs to the RSL. The specialists’ contacts could be found in part “Contacts”.

 

The speech was followed by a flow of questions from the representatives of Dissertation Councils, the major part of which were about usage electronic qualification signatures.

 

In conclusion Ms Sakirko invited to address all the appearing questions to her, especially those ones connected with the transition of eLDs of theses to the RSL or related to work of the System of acceptance of legal deposit copies of printed works in the electronic form. She was also waiting for offers contributing to the upgrading of the System and/or enhancing its running. Irina Lvovna thanked everyone for their interest towards the event and expressed her hope for future fruitful cooperation.

 

Within the framework of the Open House at the RSL, there were organized training lectures “Licensed Digital Resources for Librarians”, “Search of New Acquisitions through the Digital Catalogue of the RSL” and “Scientific Citation – RINCz, Web of Science, Scopus” for the guests.

 

The participants were invited to get detailed consultations on different questions with the specialists of the following divisions of the RSL: of the Department of restoration of library collections, the Department of library and information service, of the Education centre of further education and additional professional training, the Department of storage of main collections, the Centre of studying problems of library development in the information society, Scientific and research centre of development of library and bibliographic classification of the RSL, the Department of collection replenishment, of the Department of technology and of the Department of official and normative editions.

 

The attendees of the Open House were also offered a number of excursions around the Russian State Library, to the Book Museum and to the Pashkov House, as well as around the Ivanovsky Hall and to certain divisions of the library, that including the Department of literature in Library science, Bibliography science and Bibliology, the Central Additional Fund, the Department of records and sheet music, Centre of legal and business information and the Centre of documents of international organizations.

 

There had been prepared a rich exhibition programme which comprised the following events:

- Presentation of book exhibition from the collection of the Department of literature in Library science, Bibliography science and Bibliology “Library business within the territory of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Presenting editions of 1991 – 2017 which entered the collections of the OBL (Library Literature Department)”;

- Exhibition of entries from the collections of the Russian State Library, of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, of Hermitage, of the Polytechnic Museum, of the Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve entitled “Emperor Alexander 2^nd. Education by Enlightenment”;

- Exhibition “N.P.Rumiantsev’s collection as a basis for the Moscow Public and Rumiantsev Museums”;

- Book illustration exhibition devoted to the Victory Day for the Great Patriotic War (9 May, 1945) “Theatre in the years of the Great Patriotic War”;

- Book and illustration exhibition “Citizen writer – A.I.Solzhenitsin’s creative life (1918-2008), the foreign period”;

- Exhibitions of entries from the collections of the Department of library and information service “Transport as a particular sphere of material industry”, “The art of circuit engineering”, “Communicative functions of culture”, “Where does the word come from…”;

- Information exhibitions of current periodicals “Journals for the young”, “Do you know these journals?”, exhibition of articles from the current periodicals “Year of Culture in the CIS (in Journals and Newspapers)”;

- Svetlana Gavrilova’s art exhibition “Painting. Drawings. Illustrations”;

- Exhibitions of editions on optical CD-ROMs from the collections of the RSL “Civil activity in the modern world”, “Dialogue of languages and cultures – CIS states”;

- Exhibition of editions from the collections of the Russian Diaspora “Russian Cities in the Chinese Land (a hundred years of the Foreign Russia)”;

- Exhibition from the collections of the Department of official and normative editions “Maternity and childhood protection in documents and materials. From the collections of the Department of official and normative documents”;

- Exhibitions devoted to the 70^th anniversary of work of the UN Information Centre in Russia “UN – 70 years in Russia”, “Refugees and migrants – rights, duties and responsibilities”, “Terrorism as the menace of the 21^st century (about the activities of the CIS Antiterrorist Centre)”; “International movements of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent and solving humanitarian problems of the modern times”;

- Exhibition devoted to the 70^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights accepted by the General Assembly of the United Nations (1948–2018) “Universal Declaration of Human Rights is 70”;

- Exhibition of entries from the collections of the Department of records and sheet music “Music in child’s life” (scores and books on music for children of the 19^th – beg.of the 21^st centuries);

- Exhibition of entries from the collection of Department of artworks “Theatre Poster by Vitaly Volf”;

- Exhibition of entries from the collection of the Centre of Eastern Literature “Art of Theatre in the East”;

- Exhibition of entries from the collections of the Manuscript Department “Az and Buki first... To the Day of Slavonic  Writing and Culture”.

 

The plenary meeting was broadcast directly on the official website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries www.aselibrary.ru/.

 

All in all the Open House at the RSL counted over 380 guests and approximately 200 users viewed the direct broadcast of the event on the Internet. Among the participants there were specialists of federal and municipal libraries, of museum libraries, school libraries, libraries of higher education institutions, cultural centres, of the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, etc.

 

Video of the plenary meeting of the Open House at the RSL is available on the official website of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries http://www.aselibrary.ru/video/conference43/conference438339/.