IT and Society: Government to back Ministry of Culture in its effort to digitize the House of Esterházy’s book collection

At Thursday meeting Presidium of the Russian government is going to discuss an issue concerning allocation of funds to the Ministry of Culture with a purpose to back it in its efforts to digitize the House of Esterházy’s book collection.

The draft of the resolution stipulates that in 2011 the Ministry of Culture will allocate 13 million rubles to the M.I. Rudomino All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature to enable a digitization project featuring book collection of the House of Esterházy.

This collection also includes priceless books dated 15th-17th cc.

“The proposal intends to preserve and make use of digital copies of the House of Esterházy’s book collection in Russia, which was moved from Austria to the USSR as a result of World War II and is being passed to the Republic of Austria following the decision of the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev”, the press release reads.

The project aims to make digital copies of 185 thousand pages of this book collection.