NLR'S MEMBERSHIP IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
The National Library of Russia participates in the international library community. It is involved in projects and other activities of a number of international organizations:
- International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
- Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL)
- Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL)
- European Research Libraries League (LIBER)
- "Library - BALTICA" (Bibliotheca Baltica)
- Conference of European National Librarians (CENL)
IFLA - the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
http://www.ifla.org
The National Library of Russia formally joined IFLA and registered for the Section of National Libraries and the Preservation and Conservation Section within IFLA in 1992.
The Library takes part annually in the IFLA General Conferences both as an independent organisation and as a member of the Russian Library Association.
Today the Library staff represent the Russian Library Association in Standing Committees of the following IFLA Sections:
- National Libraries,
- Public Libraries,
- Library Buildings and Equipment,
- Bibliography,
- Cataloguing,
- Preservation and Conservation,
- Acquisition and Collection Development,
- Library History.
The National Library of Russia also participates in the Executive Committee of the:
In previous years, the Library staff took part in activities of the Section of Genealogy and Local History, the Section of Rare Books and Manuscripts, the Section of Audiovisual and Multimedia, and the Working Group within the Section of Law Libraries.
The National Library of Russia pays its special attention at working in the Permanent UNIMARC Committee acting under the aegis of the IFLA UBCIM Core Programme. The Section aims to formulate the international strategy for cataloguing, and coordinate international collaborative projects in this field.
In recent years, our libraries have taken an active role in various international projects and programmes concerned with questions of corporate cataloguing, including the project for creating of an international authority file for corporate body names.
Each year delegates from the National Library of Russia visit and participate in a meeting of specialists from the Commonwealth of Independent States, which aims to find new ways of further cooperation between institutions of culture and information in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The National Library of Russia was selected as the 2002 winner of the 50 thousand dollar grant from the Gale Group, a world leader in research and reference publishing for libraries, educational and research institutions. The award was presented during the 68th IFLA General Conference. The Library received tree years of online access to selected Gale reference products including:
- Expanded Academic ASAP database, which provides a premier collection of 3,800 full-text scholarly journals and selected general interest titles,
- Health and Wellness Resource Center, which provides a one stop, full-service resource for health-related research,
- Business and Company Resource Center, which provides an integrated collection of company profiles, company brand information, rankings, investment reports, company histories, chronologies, and periodicals. These online databases cover the period from 1980 to 2002.
Since 2003, the Library staff have participated in projects managed by the Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression.
In 2003, during the 68th IFLA General Conference, at the meeting of Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE), the National Library of Russia agreed to host a joint conference "Censorship and Access to Information: History and the Present". This conference took place in March 16-18, 2005.
CDNL - the Conference îf Directors îf National Libraries
http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/cdnl/index.htmlThe CDNL is an independent association of chief executives of national libraries, established to facilitate discussion and promote understanding and cooperation on matters of common interest to national libraries worldwide.
The National Library of Russia joined CDNL in 1995.
Each year the National Library of Russia transmitted to CDNL an annual report describing the Library's activities for the year just completed.
The National Library of Russia is represented in the conference by Dr Vladimir Zaitsev, Director General of the Library, who has attended CDNL meetings since 1995.
LIBER - the European Research Libraries League
(Ligue des Bibliotheques Europeennes de Recherche)
http://www.kb.dk/liber/
The NLR joined this organization in 1992. The NLR has been represented in four professional sections:
- Collection Access
- Collection Preservation
- Collection Development
- Library Management
The conference, held in Saint Petersburg, was a great success. About 230 specialists from 30 countries of Europe, USA and Canada attended it, which was the largest number of the participants in the history of LIBER.
Verbal reports and presentations were given by 29 speakers from many large libraries, documentation centers, and cultural and educational institutions from Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Israel, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, USA and Canada, as well as from Russia (within the special local session).
CERL - the Consortium of European Research Libraries
http://www.cerl.org
Libraries, holding early printed book collections, are facing the strong challenge of extended access to such collections and the need for union catalogues on national and international level.
The Consortium’s primary purpose is to record all books printed in Europe during the hand-press period, i.e. printed between the 1450s and the 1830s, in a machine-readable database. This resource integrates descriptive records for major European national and university library holdings.
The NLR joined the consortium in 1993.
In March of the year 2001 the Hand Press Book database (HPB) was added with the first file from the National Library of Russia. This file contais more than four thousand records for books in West-European languages published in Russia between 1701 and 1800 as well as for Russian books printed between 1725 and 1800.
The Library is continually preparing new records for addition to the HPB database.
The database now contains 20 479 records of books from our holdings dating from the beginning of printing to the middle of the 19th century.
Each year, since 1997, the Consortium has organised a training seminar relating to machine-readable cataloguing of early printed books. Since 1998, the National Library of Russia has participated in seminars and conferences managed by the Consortium. The Library hosted the 2003 General CERL Conference. The conference and the 2003 Annual CERL Seminar European cultural heritage in the digital age: creation, access and preservation took place at St. Petersburg in November.
CERL has decided to extend the benefit of full membership by encouraging its members to give access to the HPB database in smaller collections with which they have a working relationship. The maximum of institutions that can form a cluster is fifteen.
A set of objective criteria established for cluster libraries are based on size of collections of early printed books and size of cataloguing projects.
The libraries, which operate under the aegis of a Full member, gain access to the the Consortium's databases.
Since 1998, the National Library of Russia has taken a leading role in the cluster of thirteen Russian libraries, proposed by our Library as a Full Member of the Consortium of European Research Libraries.
Dr Vladimir Zaitsev, Director General of the National Library of Russia, is a member of the Consortium's Board of Directors.
"Library - BALTICA" - an association of Baltic libraries
(Bibliotheca Baltica)
http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/baltica/
The NLR was among the co-founders in 1992. The association sponsors professional information exchange.
The National Library of Russia is represented in the association by Dr Vladimir Zaitsev, Director General of the Library, and Dr Boris Volodin, the chief specialist for the Library Science Department and an elected member of the Board of Bibliotheca Baltica.
In 2004 the 7th International Symposium of Bibliotheca Baltica took place at Greifswald University Library in Germany. Boris Volodin gave the lecture Initiatives in the National Library of Russia in the field of digitizing, cataloging and preservation prepared at the instance of organizers. There was significant interest in the verbal report Digitization and cataloging of Polish documents from the Dubrovsky collection in the National Library of Russia by Dr Natalja Elagina, the head of the Manuscripts Department. The participants of the symposium expressed great appreciation of Natalja Elagina and the staff of the Department for all the work being carried out.
It was announced that the National Library of Russia would host the 2008 Biannual Symposium of Bibliotheca Baltica.
CENL - the Conference of European National Librarians
http://www.cenl.orgThe two national libraries of Russia: the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg and the Russian State Library in Moscow, represented in the Conference of European National Librarians.
The NLR joined the organization in 1995.
Dr Vladimir Zaitsev, Director General of the National Library of Russia, attends annual CENL meetings. Within the CENL the Library has been contributing for GABRIEL virtual library project.
Each year the National Library of Russia transmitted to CENL an annual report describing the Library's activities for the year just completed.
The Library readily supplies information on questions of numerous surveys conducted by services of the conference. It is worthy to mention that the Library made an important contribution to Guide to Online Resources prepared by the Conference of European National Librarians.
The National Library of Russia plans to participate in the TEL Project (The European Library) and in the MACS Project (Multilingual ACcess to Subjects) sponsored by the Conference of European National Librarians.
It was announced that the National Library of Russia would host the 2006 Annual CENL Membership Meeting.