The president of Belarus signed the legislation which amend and add the Code on culture (The legislation of Belarus “On amending the law in the field of culture” No 201-3 dtd. 21/07/2022) on July 25th.
Some of terms and conditions are to amend singles articles related to the librarianship. Eleven articles out of twenty-one from chapter eighteen “The librarianship” have been amended.
In particular, socio-cultural factor of the library activity has been reflected in the definitions “librarianship” and “a library employee”. The key directions of the library activity were related to digitizing and safekeeping of documents. The coordinating function in this field on the reginal level were undertaken by the National library of Belarus.
When a high number of duplicated and incidental documents are distributed and circulated it is possible to hand them over free of charge from a library to other entity related to the culture, or educational institution which is not related to the entities of cultural activities, or the entity which renders socio-cultural services, or religious entities.
Article 148 related to interlibrary loan has been added by definition “document delivery service” which defines as the providing of digital copies of documents to the library users with the help of the information and communication system. The library has to ensure that the author’s and associated rights in this regard are observed.
In addition, the Code amended the status of the users who use library services online – according to the document they are considered as virtual (remote) library users.
The legislation will come into effect on January 1st, 2023.
By the Bibliography research department.
