National Library Resource (NLR)

In April, 2011 it was reported that more than 1 billion rub will be selected from the budget for connection of the Russian libraries in 2012 to the National library resource / NBR / which is designed to provide free access for readers to any book in electronic form. The CEO of the Russian state library Hanging Alexander reported about it at a press conference in ITAR-TASS today.

"In 2012 on connection of public libraries / municipal, city, rural to the National library resource 1 billion 100 million rub will be selected", - he said. "By 2014 in all libraries of the country there will be computers connected to NBR".

The main task of the project - "provide for the reader of a condition that having come to the library, he could get free of charge access to any book which interested him and also provide it a broad spectrum of literature for every taste", the plenipotentiary of the Government of the Russian Federation in the State Duma, the member of the board of trustees of NBR Andrey Loginov said.

Based on NBR the uniform electronic directory which forms from funds of the Russian state library, National Library of Russia and Library of Boris Yeltsin is created. "This year about 100 million rubles according to the Culture of Russia program will be selected for activity of these libraries within the project, - he told. Next year "financing will be increased". This money will go for creation of the software which, "including, will allow authors to obtain information on that how many Russians and what category read their books".

Connection of regional libraries to NBR will be financed by means from the local budget. According to A. Loginov, "connection to this resource will not be expensive".

The national library resource works nearly a year, "so far signs agreements with authors of books which will be presented in the electronic directory". "Today the first hundred agreements is signed with authors of large text monographs", - he added.

"Access to an information resource - free, but only in the libraries connected to it", - A. Loginov explained. - The reader, having come to the library, from the electronic directory can not only read any book which interested him, but also receive the copy of the necessary sheets, but already for some payment". It, according to him, "allows to make the project profitable to all parties included in it including for the owner of the book".

The member of the Civic chamber of the Russian Federation Maxim Viktorov emphasized that "the project will allow many Russians living in rural areas not only to quickly obtain information in the broadest spectrum, but also the main thing - information without errors, typos which often occur in illegally posted online texts".

The national library resource, according to the senior employee of IMLI RAS Fedor Kapitsa, will allow to solve one more problem - editions of books which are not profitable for printing to publishing houses. "Many scientists create tens of books annually, but the publishing house does not see a pecuniary benefit in their publication, - F. Kapitsa noted. - NBR will allow to make these works available in electronic form without special monetary costs".

In Russia in total there are 130 thousand libraries among which about 36 thousand are municipal, city, rural; the others are libraries at schools, universities.

See Also

• Patent documentation is added to the National digital library now