Elar digitized 54 valuable books from the funds of the Russian State Library of Arts

2022: Digitization of 54 books

The next stage of digitization work for the Digital Theater Library (CTB) project, created for students of creative universities, has been completed.

For the Digital Theater Library, ELAR specialists digitized 54 rare and popular books among future actors, directors, stage designers and other students of creative universities.

Among the most interesting publications, for example, the monograph "Akimov," written by Soviet art critic Andrei Bartoshevich and published in 1933. This is a monograph about an outstanding theater artist, director, teacher and book graphic artist, People's Artist of the USSR Nikolay Pavlovich Akimov (1901-1968), - said Olga Petrovna Boldyreva, head of the library funds storage department. - The fate of Akimov, devotion to his work give a powerful incentive for those who are preparing to serve the theatrical art. Publication with the maximum number of illustrations for his works and performances for 1933. Another stunningly interesting book is "Lamp Soot: Memories, Heroes, Plays, Travel Notes: Theater and Architecture, Book and Illustration, Painting and Graphics" by Sergei Barkhin (2007). - All the variety and unpredictable nature of the works of the master of scenography, the artist of the book, animation and architecture are presented in the publication colorfully, fully colored and multifaceted. For students of creative universities, it will be especially useful to get acquainted with the design of performances removed from the repertoire. The beautiful album is complemented by stories and travel notes - bright, accurate and ironic.

ELAR has been helping Russian State Library of Arts to replenish the Digital Theater Library with high-quality digital copies of the most popular, as well as rare and valuable publications over the past few years. Scanning is carried out on professional ELAR equipment - planetary scanners with the function of contactless careful scanning, which guarantees high-quality electronic copies without the risk of damaging even the most dilapidated pages. The next stage after scanning is the indexing of books by bibliographic description and formation - with PDFfiles the possibility of context search by automatically recognized text. Digital copies of publications are available online to students of those creative universities that participate in the CTB project.

2021: Digitization of 102 books

As part of the development of the project of the Russian State Library of Arts "Digital Educational Theater Library," ELAR specialists created electronic copies of 102 books, including valuable publications of the pre-revolutionary period and books of the first years of Soviet power.

The "Digital Educational Theater Library of the RGBI" was created in order to ensure the educational process of students of theater universities. Now the most rare and sought-after publications are available electronically to future actors. In 2021, thousands of pages or one hundred and two more books were digitized by the ELAR Corporation to replenish the electronic collection, "said Inna Vaganova, Deputy Director for Informatization of the Russian State Budgetary Institution.

Of particular interest, for example, from the editions of the Soviet period is the monograph I. Eskuzovich. Technique of the theater scene in the past and present (1930) - an authoritative publication in its field, telling about the history of the birth of the theatrical scene, the improvement of its equipment. This fundamental work is still included in the curricula of theater universities. The printing design of the book has been preserved in the publishing version.

For the theatrical electronic library, some copies of fiction are also selected if they are important for the spiritual development of an actor or other theater figure, "said Olga Petrovna Boldyreva, head of the department for the storage of library funds of the Russian State Budgetary Institution. - The rarest edition of Ernst Theodor Hoffmann of the 19th century (Hoffmann E. T. A., Extraordinary torments of one theater director - St. Petersburg, 1894), published by M.M. Lederle in the famous series "My Library," was also digitized due to its uniqueness. Also, among the publications selected to create an electronic version, there are many books on the history of theater and culture in general. In a book about the history of the theater during the French Revolution (Derzhavin K. N., Theater of the French Revolution. 1789-1799. [Note., 1937.). "

When selecting books for a digital collection, RGBI specialists pay attention to such factors as the uniqueness of the publication, the meaningful value, the author's authority, the presence of native printing signs, the small number of surviving copies and, of course, publications should be included in the lists for educational programs of creative universities. Rare and valuable publications are scanned by ELAR specialists on professional domestic equipment - planetary scanners. The contactless gentle scanning function makes it possible to create high-quality electronic copies of even dilapidated and damaged pages. After the scan itself, the books were indexed according to the bibliographic description and formed PDF-files with the ability to context search by automatically recognized text.

2018

Digitization of the Rare Book Fund

On July 4, 2018, ELAR Corporation announced that it had digitized over 23 thousand pages from the funds of rare books of the Russian State Library of Arts (RGBI) to replenish the institution's Internet resource.

Thanks to digitization, originals will now be issued to specialists on demand if absolutely necessary, which will ensure the safety of publications for many years, and historians, culturologists, directors, actors, creative teams and other figures of science and art will have full multiplayer access to electronic funds of the RGBI.

Whatever the circulation, a good book published on paper is not available to everyone. Moreover, this applies to publications that are contained in the funds of rare books of the RGBI. Paper originals are stored in special conditions, demonstrated in exceptional cases and only specially trained people can work with them. But there are many scientists, and in order to meet their demand for studying books with unique properties, such publications need to be digitized for public access.

During the project, unique originals of the XIX and XX centuries were translated into electronic format.

Digitization of publications with a half-century history implies the use of special scanning equipment: when working with valuable tomes, contactless scanners of their own production ElarSCAN A2, ELAR PlanScan were used, where the lighting system does not contain infrared and ultraviolet radiation harmful to books. For transportation, special equipment was selected, the material of which does not release by-products that accelerate the destruction of paper.

The library fund is about 2 million items of storage of books, magazines, newspapers. The book fund is composed of domestic and foreign literature about theater, music, ballet, cinema, drama, visual arts, architecture, ethnography, costume. With the help of digitization, library staff will be able to preserve an invaluable cultural and historical heritage, and everyone wants the opportunity to fully familiarize themselves with valuable publications, including remotely.

Filling of the Newspaper Articles database

On March 21, 2018, ELAR Corporation announced the continued filling of the Newspaper Articles database of the Russian State Library of Arts (RGBI) and the digitization of rare books from the institution's funds.

One of the projects that the RGBI has been implementing since 2007, the digitization of newspaper clippings thematically related to art, was launched in conjunction with ELAR. The library keeps paper originals with the article in the insurance fund, and thanks to digitization, there is no need to hand them out to readers. Instead, the search for materials is carried out using the Newspaper Articles database.

This year, ELAR digitized more than 7,000 pages for the Newspaper Articles database. In total, the Newspaper Articles database contains 337 thousand records, and 317 thousand were created by ELAR.

"Filling the base is as follows," There is an array of folders with articles - clippings from newspapers and magazines. We scan every such clipping. Then the digital images are processed and tested for quality, and PDF files are formed on their basis with the possibility of context search. In order to find a specific publication in the database, or to select articles on a certain topic, electronic copies are indexed. " Alexander Efanov, leading expert of ELAR Corporation on working with libraries and universities

2010: Creating an electronic version of the general alphabetical catalog

The Russian State Library of Arts (RGBI), together with ELAR Corporation, has implemented a project to create an electronic version of the general alphabetical catalog.

The RGBI is currently one of the main institutions holding funds for culture and the arts. More than 1 million 670 thousand library items are books, magazines, newspapers, newspaper clippings, theater programs, prints, sketches, watercolors, reproductions, postcards and photographs.

The Russian State Library of Arts and ELAR Corporation began cooperation with the transfer to electronic form of the RGBI newspaper clipping fund. The project affected the scientific and information fund, which collected more than 800 thousand newspaper clippings covering news from the theatrical stage of the country.

Newspaper strips, which the institution began to collect from the 30s of the 20th century, were digitized and their electronic images created. Paper originals are now contained in a preserved fund, and the need to hand them out as a source of information has completely disappeared. It is also possible to do without them to automatically search for the required document by several parameters (the author of the article, the name of the newspaper, the place of publication, the date of publication, the name of the theater, the city in which the latter is located).

Another joint project of the library and the ELAR company was the retroconversion of the repertoire file cabinet in 12 search fields. And thanks to the creation of an electronic file cabinet, it was possible to save 790,000 subject catalog cards from complete wear - a unique source of information on art history and cultural literature.

In 2009, ELAR specialists began conversion into an electronic form of the general alphabetical catalog of the RGBI. The creation of an electronic version of the general alphabetical catalog took place in two stages. Initially, 262,300 catalog cards were scanned. Then retroconveneration was carried out in 20 search fields of cards in Russian and in 17 fields in foreign languages. As a result, library users do not need to manually navigate through the contents of the boxes to find the book, but just enter the search parameters in the electronic field. Ordering books has also become a more convenient and faster procedure - it no longer requires handheld fills.

Previously, the catalog occupied one of the premises of the RGBI, and after the cards were digitized, the boxes were removed from the main building of the institution. According to the deputy director of the RGBI Inna Alexandrovna Vaganova, the vacant space is now occupied by readers who can work with the electronic version of the catalog.