The sixth international conference and exhibition "libcom-2002: information technologies, computer systems and publications for libraries

Citation

Marshak, A. and Zverevich, V. (2003), "The sixth international conference and exhibition "libcom-2002: information technologies, computer systems and publications for libraries", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2003.23920cac.001

The sixth international conference and exhibition "libcom-2002: information technologies, computer systems and publications for libraries"

Anna Marshak and Victor Zverevich

The Sixth International Conference and Exhibition "LIBCOM-2002: Information Technologies, Computer Systems and Publications for Libraries" took place on November 11-15, 2002 in Zvenigorod, Moscow Region, Russia. The Russian National Public Library for Science & Technology was the main Conference organizer.

Over 500 participants from 14 countries attended the Conference. The geographic representation of attendees comprised Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Sri-Lanka, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom and USA. About 110 papers were presented at workshops and round-tables within the Conference program. Information material from major publishing houses, book trade companies, information centers and other institutions was presented at the Exhibition. The subject scope of presented information material was as follows: Applications of modern computer technologies in information services and librarianship, Internet technologies, Digital information resources, CD-ROMs, New services by publishing houses, and Production and distribution of printed documents. The Exhibition included 23 stands.

The LIBCOM Conference is a known professional forum, where the most critical issues dealing with the development and strengthening of cooperation between libraries, publishing houses and book trade companies are discussed. The value of the Conference attracts the attention of senior officials responsible for the development of state policy in the library and information business, book business and related fields. In their welcoming remarks at the Conference opening officials underlined the value and importance of the LIBCOM conferences for librarianship with respect to information society development.

The plenary session was the main Conference event. Papers were presented at two sessions of the plenary session by the following persons:

1. 1.

   Valery Sudarenkov, Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and a Member of the Council of the Federation of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, "Education and libraries – unity in purposes".

2. 2.

   Vladimir Nechiporenko, Head of the Department of Technologies and Information Resources Development’at the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology of the Russian Federation, "Information infrastructure in science and technology in Russia:’new approaches and objectives".

3. 3.

   Evgeny Kuzmin, Head of the Department of Libraries at the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, "Unesco programs: information’for everyone" and "Russian libraries: results of cooperation and close plans".

4. 4.

   Yakov Shraiberg, President of the International Association of Electronic Libraries and New Information Technologies Users and Developers, and First Deputy Director of the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology, "Information activities of libraries: social demand".

5. 5.

   Andrei Zemskov, Director of the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology, "Electronic libraries: new view".

6. 6.

   Alexander Visly, Director of Informatization of the Russian State Library, "Manifest on preservation of documents electronic copies located on the Internet with free access"

7. 7.

   Vivien Cook, Regional Consultant in Northern Europe at OCLC PICA, "OCLC PICA – a global library consortium".

8. 8.

   Alexander Plemnek, Director of the "Library Automation" Program at the Open Society Institute – Russia (Soros Foundation), "Library consortia in Russia: unification in main".

9. 9.

   Nikolai Kuznetsov, Director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, "Information interaction in technical systems and society".

10. 10.

    Boris Marshak, Head of the Research Division at the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology, and Executive Director of the International Association of Electronic Libraries and New Information Technologies, Users and Developers, "Library automated systems development trends".

As in previous years, the Conference program was pretty tight. It included permanent workshops, such as "Electronic Libraries," "Corporate Library Systems and Their Projects," "Libraries in Modern Information Environment: Social, Economic, Information and Legal Aspects," "Modern Instructional Technologies and Library and Information Professionals Education," "Automated Information and Library Systems and Technologies, Union Catalogs and Internet," "Modern Technologies for Cooperation between Publishers, Book Distributors and Libraries," as well as newly organized events, such as the workshop "Problems of Linguistic Support of Library and Information Systems Development," and round-tables "Development of a Single Information Space for Publishers, Book Distributors and Libraries," "Programs and Projects by the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technologies in the Field of Libraries: Present Stage Analysis and Evaluation of Proposals for the Future," "Interregional Analytic Description of Articles: Library Consortium Development Problems," "On the Problem of Preservation of Electronic Copies of Documents Accessible on the Internet for Free," "On the Problem of National Subject Headings List and Universal Thesaurus" and "OCLC Products and Services." As in previous years, special attention was paid to state-of-the-art and development perspectives of new information, computer and Internet technologies for librarianship improvement, and library services transformation.

Electronic libraries and corporate library systems were the focus of the Conference as well. Alexander Plemnek pointed out issues most relevant to libraries' consolidation in his paper at the plenary meeting. His assumption was that solving these problems could become a basis for improving library services and promoting compatibility with standards and copyright issues, and understanding or establishing clarity with technical and financial problems common among many libraries. Issues of library consortia formation and development were further discussed at two round tables – "Corporate Library Systems and Their Projects" and "Moscow Corporate Library Network: Results and Perspectives." Yakov Shraiberg mentioned this issue in his paper at the plenary meeting as well, and particularly indicated the facts of successful cooperation between public and "non-public" libraries.

Copyright issues were one of the most important discussion topics at the Conference. In his plenary session, Alexander Visly introduced the bill of the "Manifest on preservation of documents electronic copies located on the Internet with free access", a "provocative" manifest, he said. This manifest is formulated "on the basis of the main library mission: to collect, preserve and provide access to any type of publications" and presupposes granting libraries with free access to electronic documents placed on the Internet and opportunity to copy and use those documents. The manifest authors assume that this would "allow libraries to actually participate in the process of electronic libraries formation and provide opportunities for cultural heritage preservation in electronic format."

This "provocative" manifest was also the subject of major discussion at the round-table chaired by Alexander Visly. Nevertheless, participants in the discussion did not succeed in reaching a unified result. Moreover, polar opinions were expressed, from the one that all documents published in the Internet can be copied with no limits, to another that any copying even for "cultural heritage preservation" purposes should be considered as copyright violation. For instance, Yakov Shraiberg noted that "propagation of a double standard" should be prohibited and the law should be strictly observed. Copyright Law is the law and any manifests presuming that the Law can be violated to a certain extent are not needed and could even be adverse for the library and information business.

The paper by Vivien Cook at the plenary meeting, and the following round-table OCLC products and services were of big interest to the Conference participants. At the round-table Vivien Cook and her colleague Simon Day, Products Manager at the OCLC-PICA Corporation, presented such projects by OCLC as FirstSearch, QuestionPoint and netLibrary. As OCLC products and services are known pretty well around the world, the round-table participants were mostly interested whether OCLC plans to introduce the Russian language in OCLC products and interfaces in the near future or not. Cook and Day generally answered that at present OCLC products/ interfaces are designed in the English, Chinese and Japanese languages. Introduction of major European languages in OCLC products/interfaces is planned for the near future. Introduction of the Russian language could be an issue in the near future if OCLC products become more popular in Russia.

A traditional topic at LIBCOM conferences is development of cooperation among libraries, publishing houses, book trade companies and book distributors. The special workshop, Modern Technologies for Cooperation between Publishers, Book Distributors and Libraries dealt with this issue. Representatives of publishing houses and book trade companies pointed out that participation by library professionals is needed for successful cooperative work.

The round-table, Development of a Single Information Space for Publishers, Book Distributors and Libraries, chaired by Yakov Shraiberg, was held within this workshop. The most crucial issue of discussion was switching to a single classification system, which could promote close cooperation among all subjects of the book world. But as the Ministry for Printing, Broadcasting and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation does not finance works on this classification design, the round-table participants attempted to find other ways for cooperation. Representatives of institutions combining book publishing and book distribution indicated that the market could make them invest money in the classification design and support professional bibliographic work. This work could be performed in two contexts: either hiring a professional bibliographer on a full-time basis or signing specific contracts with third parties.

Another traditional event within LIBCOM conferences is the workshop, Modern Instructional Technologies and Library and Information Professionals Education. This year the new educational standard (with the bachelor and Master's degrees award) in library and information science was the focal point of discussion. Alexander Mazuritsky, First Vice-rector at Moscow State University for Culture and Arts, presented this standard in his paper. Armen Adamyants, Head of Learning and Instructional Center at the Russian National Public Library for Science & Technology and Associate Professor at the Division of Information Technologies and Electronic Libraries, Moscow State University for Culture and Arts; Olga Mezentseva, Dean of Library and Information Science Division at Moscow State University for Culture and Arts; Natalia Slyadneva, Dean of the Division for Management and Social Information Technologies at Moscow State University for Culture and Arts and others presented papers at the workshop meeting as well. The new educational standard led into a discussion involving a large number of participants including the Rudomino School Learning Center at M.I. Rudomino All-Russian State Library for Foreign Literature. The Center representatives reflected on the necessity to switch to a new educational standard, indicating that the quality of education is high enough in the country anyway. They also expressed an opinion that entering the global educational arena in this manner would promote the outflow of qualified professionals from Russia. In response, Mazuritsky underlined that this is not the problem of education, but is a social problem. Mezentseva indicated that the new standard reflects only modernization of education, and not its destruction. Finally, participants came to the conclusion that, at present change is urgently needed to increase the status of the library profession and to support the improvement of the quality of professional education irrespective of formal standards.

The workshop, Electronic Libraries, also attracted a range of interesting papers. The subject scope of the papers covered not just the design of electronic libraries, but the issues of intellectual property, bibliographic description standards, museum automation, etc. Foreign participants (such as Bernd Wegner, Professor at Berlin Technical University, Germany; Norman Briggs, Personal & Corporate Intelligence co., UK; Viveca Halldin Norberg, Uppsala University Library, Sweden) presented papers. Ms Norberg commented that the first CD-ROM published using Touch & Turn Technology was within the Library of Alexandria project launched by the Egyptian Government and Unesco. Touch & Turn Technology provides an opportunity to use the browser, which makes one feel one is reading a manuscript in reality (pages are turned on display with a slight lisp). In addition, it is possible to watch the manuscript and miniatures in detail and read comments about them. Norberg demonstrated that the very first digitized manuscript, the medieval oriental manuscript, The Book of Jalal and Jamal, contains 34 miniatures in addition to the text. This manuscript is located in the Rare Book collection at Uppsala University Library. This Collection has manuscripts in ancient Slavic language as well. Norberg gave this digital publication to the Russian National Public Library for Science & Technology as a gift.

The paper by the group of authors at Urals State University (Ekaterinburg, Russia), "Harmonization of Russian library standards and requirements to information technologies," appeared to be of great interest at the Conference. Even though it had been previously presented, it was repeated due to this great interest.

Several product demonstrations and releases also took place during the LIBCOM-2002 program. New information sources and products, such as new versions of UDC and Library and Bibliographic Classification (LBC) for public libraries on CD-ROM, the monograph, "Foundations of automated library and information systems design" by Felix Voroisky; an electronic interactive learning aid "Electronic libraries" by Andrei Zemskov and Yakov Shraiberg released by Libereya Publishing House and referred to as an "interactive complex" containing 673 slides and 3,000 text pages formed this universal book. Shraiberg's book, Selected Works, was released by Pashkov Dom Publishing House and may be available as an eBook. The Bulletin, "Who is Who in Crimea", published in recognition of Yakov Shraiberg's 50th anniversary was also introduced.

The Conference participants had an opportunity to purchase presented books and other products at the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology and KnoRus Publishing House exhibition stands.

The traditional series of training and consulting events was held within the IRBIS Permanent School-Workshop fall 2002 session. This School is focused on teaching librarians to work in the Automated Library Information System (ALIS) IRBIS. The fall 2002 session topic was: "ALIS IRBIS use and development for beginners and advanced users." IRBIS System designers and leading professionals moderated the session classes. The Round-Table of IRBIS Automated Library Systems Distributors was held within the School Program. The next (summer) session of the School will be held within the Crimea-2003 International Conference, June 7-15, 2003, Sudak, Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Ukraine.

For additional information on the Sixth International Conference and Exhibition LIBCOM-2002 see the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology Web site: www.gpntb.ru The Seventh International Conference and Exhibition "LIBCOM-2003: Information Technologies, Computer Systems and Publications for Libraries" will take place November 10-14, 2003 at the same venue.

Anna Marshak (PR@gpntb.ru)and Victor Zverevich (Zver@gpntb.ru)are Section Heads at the Russian National Public Library for Science & Technology, Moscow.