Book and Reading in the CIS

The director of the National Library of Belarus Raman Matul’ski took part in the international round table "Book and Reading in the CIS" on December 14.

The meeting was held in the National Library of Russia in the framework of the IV Saint Petersburg international cultural forum.

The subject of the round table was the international dimension of book and reading problems in the CIS.

The participants listened to the report of Raman Matul’ski "Book and reading in the Republic of Belarus" with great interest.

Specialists exchanged views on the issues of state and public support of book and reading institutions, book trade, education and librarianship in these countries in order to identify leading experience and innovations that have a potential of spreading.

As a result of the round table, there was adopted a resolution aimed at creation of social and government systems of development and support of book and reading institutions in the CIS.

The ХVIII General Meeting of the Library Assembly of Eurasia members, a non-profit partnership of libraries, was held in the framework of the IV Saint Petersburg international cultural forum on December 15. The aim of the meeting is the voluntary development of common approaches to the organization of information and library and social and cultural spheres of the former Soviet Union countries.

The meeting became an important prelude to the major activities of the cooperation of member states of the CIS in the sphere of culture for 2016–2020 and the 70th anniversary of UNESCO. Formats of cooperation in the library sector, including issues of opening and support of virtual reading rooms of electronic libraries, were discussed at the meeting.

A particular attention is paid to the issues related to the preparation of a new edition of the modal Library code and the project on the creation of the Electronic library of the LAE. The Electronic library of the LAE is offered to be created on the basis of the principle of distribution, combining the resources of the national libraries of the Commonwealth. The National Library of Russia has offered to put their electronic library as the basis of a future collection.

Proposals of the Interstate Fund for humanitarian cooperation of member states of the CIS and the International Committee of the Red Cross on the future engagement were heard at the meeting.

As part of the meeting was The elections of the president and vice-president of the LAE for the period of 2016–2019 were held at the meeting. The Director General of the Russian State Library A. Visly and the Director of the National Library of Belarus R. Motulsky were re-elected for the positions of the president and vice-president of the LAE. The Director of the National Library of Azerbaijan K. Takhirov was also elected for the position of the vice-president of the LAE.

Directors of the National Library of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan participated in the events by invitation of Saint Petersburg international cultural forum.