On 12 September, a press conference timed to Libraries Day took place at the National Library of Belarus.
The meeting dedicated to promotion of reading in Belarus was arranged by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus and the National Library of Belarus.
Deputy Minister of Culture of the Republic of Belarus Vasily Chernik, First Deputy Director of the National Library of Belarus for User Service and Ideology Elena Dolgopolova, Director of the Y. Kolas Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Natalya Berezkina, Director of the Centralized System of Children’s Libraries of Minsk Tatiana Shved , and also representatives of Minsk libraries participated in the press conference.
Vasily Chernik noted that Libraries Day was a unique professional holiday as it involved everyone who concerned books and knowledge, and emphasized all the importance of offical celebration of the Year of Book. He said last year a plenty of actions on popularization of reading had been held, however the work on development and promotion of the book was not limited by that. Vasily Chernik told about the program on maintenance and development of children’s and family reading which was developed by the Ministry of Culture for 2013–2015. For example, many city and regional children’s libraries of Belarus arranged meetings of children with celebrated figures of the region who, within the framework of meetings, read to children their favourite books.
The Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus also focuses attention on book promotion by studying the reader audience. According to Natalya Berezkina, results of these studies show that despite the development of electronic resources libraries and books still play a significant role in society’s life.
Elena Dolgopolova told about the limits of electronic resources. As she said, readers demanding expansion of full-text electronic stocks of libraries should take into consideration the Law of the Republic of Belarus “About the copyright and the allied rights”. For example, from more than eight million books in the collections of the National Library of Belarus only about one million books are not subject of the copyright law. In other cases publishers and authors have the right to get royalty for use of their products by other persons, partially or completely.
The press conference passed with animation, and journalists took an active part in discussion of the problem.
|
|
|
