The National Library of Belarus prepared and published the collection Bіblіyatechnae krayaznaustva: prastora vyalіkіkh magchymastsey i perspektyu.
The study of local lore is the field of big opportunities where it is possible to express talent and love for his native land. Especially, it relates to the library field as it is distinguished by its information richness and openness. For every civilized society it is typical to have a careful attitude to libraries because any other social institution doesn’t have such importance in the preservation of historical and cultural heritage. Libraries collect and store documental information which is the result of society life as a whole as well as some national, geographical and territorial segments, and which indicates the level of its intellectual, creative, industrial development. For a researcher, teacher, student, pupil, boss and a lover it is a source of ideas, scientific facts and motivation for creative search.
In this case librarians are not only reliable guides and inspirers, advisers and associates, but also researchers who by their depth and scope of search can be not worst and sometimes even better than the most tireless researchers. They help to regulate the world of information on the study of local lore, analyze it and share the results unselfishly and continuously. The study of local lore is a high-minded work of libraries of all levels – from national to the smallest library in a village. And achievements are measured not by the scale but by depth and consistency of the search of facts, originality and thoroughness of developments.
In May of 2012, the National Library of Belarus hosted an international scientific and practical seminar "Local history of libraries: territory of great opportunities and prospects" dedicated to the development of library local lore. It became a significant event in the life of the library community in our country. In Belarus, in fact, since the late 1990s this important field of modern libraries hasn’t been developed, but it has remained outside mainstream of national development of library science and bibliography, and centralized organizational and methodological decision-making.
The seminar brought together not only representatives of the largest libraries of our country but also from Poland, Russia, Israel. Speeches had mainly practice-oriented character and showed multiple destinations of library local lore: the formation of funds with local lore literature, the creation of bibliographies, databases, semantic processing of local lore literature, etc. It was a very interesting conversation of people obsessed with their work, ideas and development of library local lore.
The participants of the seminar suggested to publish the best papers in the collection of the same name. Therefore, the participants’ papers constitute the most part of the edition. But the scale of the study of local lore is very large, so it has been decided to gather other articles, teaching materials and many others in order to reflect in detail various aspects of this field of knowledge.
This idea was endorsed by provincial and district libraries in our country as well as the National Library of Poland, the Russian National Library, the National Library of the Republic of Karelia, regional libraries of the Russian Federation. We express a particular appreciation to the Russian Library Association for the assistance in the gathering of materials from different libraries and sending texts in electronic form (Bibliotechnoe kraevedenie: territoriya bolshikh vozmozhnostey: materialy mezhregionalnoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii (Arhangelsk, 9–12 oktyabrya 2012 g.) (Library local lore: the territory of great opportunities: materials of interregional scientific conference (Arkhangelsk, 9–12 October, 2012)) [Electronic resource]. Arkhangelsk, 2012), part of which has been published in the collection.
The collection consists of four sections and reflects the most active areas of library local lore at the present stage: the formation of collections with the material on local lore in the funds of libraries, the creation of electronic resources on the study of local lore, the interaction of libraries with museums, archives, the popularization of information resources on local lore.
The information of the collection testifies that libraries pay a great attention to the study of local lore, documental heritage of regions, the formation and maintenance of collections, and the creation of various information products.
The proposed materials will be useful for studying, maybe even for using experience and further scientific analysis. Multidimensional nature of its content and form of their presentation is intended for the widest readership: from researchers, inventors and experts in the field of local lore, enthusiasts and for all interested in the history of his native land.
