Digital libraries: An advantage of NEB Project was discussed at the International Library Conference in Crimea

Deputy Minister of Culture of Russian Federation Grigory Ivliev discussed at the "Crimea 2015" XXII International Conference (Sudak) an advantage of the project of the National Digital Library (NEB).

"Your traditional forum of small industry conference has become a landmark event in the field of culture and education — ours, but also the whole world’s,” — Secretary of State, Deputy Minister of Culture Grigory Ivliev has read the welcome speech for of Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev at the opening ceremony for heads of libraries, publishing houses, museums and archives. — This year, which takes place under the badge of Russian literature, your meetings are especially important. They once again remind people that reading plays a large part in our lives, that good books contribute to the forming a human outlook and help in values selection."

Deputy Minister has presented at the conference the largest project of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation — a project of the National Digital Library (NEB), public education information system that offers an access to information resources to all libraries subscribers and the Internet users. NEB is designed to serve a wide range of Russian and foreign residents and is considered a regular reader, as well as the students of secondary and higher education institutions, researchers and teachers.

Currently, NEB readers have an ability to customize their accounts to work with texts, and the search of documents is carried out in a familiar way, as in any Internet search engine — through a single search bar. Publications that are not protected by copyright law are freely available; some of these can be downloaded and read from users’ own devices. To read the documents protected by the legislation on copyright and related rights, user has to register with a proof of passport information and receive an individual electronic library card.

Among the priorities of the further development of the NEB is an improvement of a single point of access to the NEB resources — the united NEB portal — and a further connection to the NEB the funds of federal, regional and municipal libraries, libraries of educational and scientific institutions, and the resources of the other legal owners. As pilot project, NEB already connected with the resources of 36 libraries, 29 of them are regional. During 2015 it is planned to connect at least 100 new members, as well as the resources of archives, museums and universities.

Deputy Minister of Culture reviewed an idea of one individual library card (EECHB) and its integration with the Electronic Government. Currently EECHB is in the process of testing and debugging. Actual tasks of the project are the transition to a text books formats in the NEB, organization of text recognition service and interface development of individual NEB users accounts.