21-22 October 2010, the Scientific Library of Belarussian National Technical University, Library Association of Belarus and the Fundamental Library of Belarusian State University, together with the Russian Association of Digital Libraries, held the 11^th International Research and Practical Conference “Management of Libraries of Higher Education Institutions”. The main theme of the conference was “Digital Information Resources and Technologies for Quality Education and Science at Higher Education Institutions”.

At the conference, there participated directors and specialists from the libraries of higher education institutions, information centres, as well as producers of digital resources, computer – aided library and information systems; there were also specialists of science and library business, publishers, book – selling and other involved organizations of the Republic of Belarus and foreign countries.

22 October 2010, at the second session of section “Digital Resources in Library Practice and Assessment of Research Activity” Igor Gruzdev – IT director of the Russian State Library, director of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries, who presided at the session, – presented his report. There, I. Gruzdev spoke about the aims of the Russian Association of Digital Libraries, and also about the main areas of its activity and its projects.

The next person to speak from the Russian State Library was Nina Avdeeva, head of the department of support of digital resources of the RSL. She presented to the audience one of the chief projects of the library – “Digital Dissertation Library of the RSL”. She named the main stages of its development, she explained rules of usage of the resource, she gave the statistics confirming the popularity of the Digital Dissertation Library of the RSL (DDL RSL) among the users in Belarus.

As the 11^th International Research and Practical Conference “Management of Libraries of Higher Education Institutions” was devoted to the 90^th anniversary of the Scientific Library of the Belarussian National Technical University, at the territory of which there had been opened a Virtual Reading Room of the RSL, the directors of the Russian State Library granted to the library of the BNTU a 3 month access to the DDL RSL free of charge – as a present for the anniversary.