From December 3 to 6, the staff of the National Library of Belarus within the framework of the European Union’s MOST project (Mobility Scheme for Targeted People-to-People-Contacts), aimed at expanding professional contacts between citizens of the European Union and Belarus, visited the libraries of Leipzig (Federal Republic of Germany).
The delegation including heads of structural divisions: Margarita Znak, head of the Official Documents Department, Julia Kiseleva, head of the Internet Portal Maintenance Department, Olga Skalaban, head of the Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Department, Elena Tulupova, head of the Reference and Information Department, and Tatiana Khodosevich, head of the Special Collections Department, visited the Leipzig branch of the German National Library and the University of Leipzig Library.
During the visit to the University of Leipzig Library, the staff of the National Library of Belarus took part in the Digital Humanities Day 2018, an annual conference that brings together representatives of various organizations and institutions of culture, education etc to promote projects on digitalization of cultural and historical values and experience exchange. The Digital Humanities Day allowed the attendees to learn about the technology and methods of digitizing the cultural heritage of Germany and other European countries, as well as the legal and technical aspects of their use.
The University of Leipzig Library has several branches (departments). The professional visit included an introduction to the work of the Medical Library (Medcine and Science Library), which opened its doors to readers in a new modern building in November 2018, as well as the Albertina Library (Biblioteka Albertina), the main administrative building of the university library and at the same time a piece of architecture.
The organizer and curator of the visit to the University of Leipzig Library, Sophia Manns-Süsbrich, conducted an exciting tour telling about the history of its creation and subsequent recovery after the Second World War, as well as about the library’s current activity such as the reader service system using RFID technologies, library service organizing, acquisition and redistribution of library collections.
During the meeting with the director of the library, Professor Ulrich Schneider, the representatives of the National Library of Belarus discussed the issues of virtual user service, the development of virtual projects, the preparation of social and cultural events, and work accounting in a library.
The German National Library has branches in Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig. During the study tour to the Leipzig branch, organized by the assistant director of the library Sandra Baumgart, the Belarusian delegation got acquainted with the history of the library, its structure and main activities. A working meeting was also held with Andre Wendler, a representative of the Museum of Books and Printing, and Ruprecht Langer, the head of the music archive, during which colleagues shared their experience in the management and work of their departments. In turn, the staff of the National Library of Belarus spoke about the Belarusian experience of remote user service, which aroused interest among German colleagues.
The library staffer, Sandro Ulman presented a software product that allows you to automatically assign indexes to electronic documents. The program, by the way, is already being successfully used by the German National Library.
The head of the collection service and management department, Jürg Rauber, spoke about the reader service system at the German National Library, as well as the features of storing and using collections of printed and electronic documents.
