Saint-Petersburg hosted a meeting of heads of federal and central regional libraries of Russia

Today in Saint-Petersburg at the Annual Meeting of Directors of Federal and Central Regional Libraries in the new building of the National Library of Russia were discussed issues on confronting the challenges of today and using digital space to join the library community and truthful information sharing.

The event took place within the framework of the VII St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum. It was organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the National Library of Russia and the Russian State Library.

The main topic of the meeting was “The future of libraries in the digital economy”. The participants were welcomed by the Head of the Information and Digital Development Department of the Ministry of Culture of Russia Vadim Van'kov, the President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Gloria Perez-Salmeron, and the First Deputy Chairman of the St. Petersburg Committee for Culture Alexander Voronko.

More than 300 specialists from 79 regions of our country took part in the meeting. The meeting was moderated by the Director General of the National Library of Russia Alexander Vershinin and the head of the Russian State Library Vadim Duda. One of the main themes was the concept of the development of libraries in Russia, due to the time of their transformation into large-scale cultural centers using innovative technologies.

The Acting Director General of the Presidential Library Valentin Sidorin made a report to the audience. He stressed the importance of the mission of national libraries, which should unite the industry, unite the people of our country in the broad sense of the word. This is especially necessary now - in the Internet era, where attempts to rewrite history are not uncommon. One of the most important tasks of national libraries, according to Valentin Sidorin, is the presentation of information based on real facts: “Now we see that the introduction of frankly false information about the Great Patriotic War, the blockade of Leningrad is constantly becoming an occasion for creative fantasies and conjectures. Meanwhile, we have books published in the besieged city, examples of the courage of people, including librarians who worked for the Victory, there are newspapers and documents of those years, diaries. Few of the generation of the Internet know that the Crimean question is historically determined by the documents on which Novorossia stretched from Crimea to Odessa. Virtually no one knows about the expedition of the Russian fleet to the shores of North America in the XIX century, which largely contributed to the outcome of the civil war and the creation of the United States".

Valentin Sidorin showed the meeting participants a presentation on the activities of the Presidential Library in this direction. This is a series of events: multimedia lessons for schoolchildren, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Russian Constitution, webinars, cinema clubs, multimedia exhibitions, educational films.

The heads of the national libraries also discussed cooperation issues. In this regard, the Acting Director General of the Presidential Library Valentin Sidorin recalled the current agreement, which implies "the full use of available resources in the interests of the state and society". Thus, it is necessary to pose a question on gratuitous provision of materials from national libraries for non-commercial, scientific and educational use. “This all is more relevant in connection with the upcoming events - the 75th anniversary of the lifting of the blockade on January 27, 2019, the 75th anniversary of the Victory on May 9, 2020, this year’s Tehran anniversary and Yalta conferences, other historical dates. All together, despite the departmental affiliation, discarding in this case the price lists, we need to unite in making information calls. The more solidly we answer with truthful, objective information, we will show libraries and their resources as the basis of truth, the higher the role of our sphere will be, the more real knowledge will be in demand”, - stressed acting Director General of the Presidential Library.