Libraries and legal regulation: Bill “On Libraries in St. Petersburg” passed

On June 29 during the session the Government of St. Petersburg passed the bill "On libraries in St. Petersburg". The Governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matvienko announced that the bill would be submitted to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly for consideration in the autumn session.

According to the bill the Government of St. Petersburg will provide financial backing for the acquisition and preservation of holdings of state libraries in St. Petersburg, arrange library service for the population and guarantee implementation of rights of citizens for the library services in St. Petersburg. Under the law special central libraries for specific branches of knowledge and libraries aimed at certain groups – children and youth, blind and visually impaired etc. will be set up. The law implementation will not require any additional expenses from the budget.

"It is very important that the city government is considering the law on the library science. If we call St. Petersburg the cultural capital, it means that libraries take a significant place in it. We have adopted a program for libraries’ modernization, its first stage has been completed. Libraries have become cultural and information centers, becoming more available for the population. I support the idea about the adoption of this bill, it specifies the strategy of the government in this very direction, - the Governor of St. Petersburg stressed.

According to the Chairman of the Committee on Culture of the St. Petersburg Government Anton Gubankov, there are 190 public libraries in St. Petersburg. Their financing reached 1,135 billion rubles as compared to 476 million rubles 5 years ago. In 2009 the number of patrons of St Petersburg libraries was up 350,000 people thus reaching 1,015 million people, in 2009 7,400 million people visited libraries, by May 2010 this figure increased with  570 people.

The director of the St. Petersburg Mayakovsky Central City Library Zoya Chalova remarked that “St. Petersburg was the only region, which lacked its own law regarding libraries, adding that the “lawless time was over”.