Libraries of Russia: War-time newspapers go digital in Orenburg

On the threshold of the Great Victory Day a genuine present for patrons and particularly for specialists - historians, ethnographers, journalists – has been prepared by the staff of N.K. Krupskaya Orenburg Regional Universal Library. Files of the war-time local newspaper “Chkalovskaya kommuna” (1941-1945), stored in the library, have been digitized. Patrons can now “leaf through” the rare pages either in the library’s Electronic Reading Room, or on Internet on the library’s website at www.orenlib.ru in the “Funds and catalogues” section.

Since the war-time years the library has preserved files of central newspapers “Pravda”, “Krasnaya zvezda”, “Izvestiya”, “Uchitelskaya gazeta”, municipal newspaper “Znamya socializma”, regional editions “Bolshevik”, “Kolkhozny trud”, “Buguruslanskaya Pravda” and others.

They all will be digitized to make library’s rare collections fully open, and also ensure that they are safely preserved. Nowadays it is hard to work with old newspapers – editions which have survived turn out to be very fragile, therefore the library can’t lend them to patrons: some issues may even crumble in hands. Any, even the most insignificant damage, moisture dramatically harm the physical edition. In this view librarians are doing their best to prolong the life of the carrier of unique information and make it more accessible.