| |
The National Library of Belarus (NLB) is the greatest leading science institution of the Republic of Belarus in field of Library Science, Bibliography and Bibliology. It is a coordinating center of municipal and international loan, national retrospective bibliography. The Library is a universal republican depository of the UN, UNESCO and other international organizations publications, as well as it is the unique keeper of the printed production in Belarus that were published within of the USSR on all fields of knowledge.
At present time, the NLB is characterized by the following activities:
- Depository Stock - 8 millions items;
- Annual Acquisitions - 150 000-200 000 copies of printed editions
- Readers - 90 000 persons;
- Annual Book-Delivery - 3,2 millions items, including International Loan - 12000 items;
- Number of Own-Published Issues - 20 titles per year by total volume of 290 quires.
The National Library of Belarus
is the major universal information institution of the Republic
of Belarus. The number of visits totals more than 500 000 persons yearly,
the general circulation of documents is over 3 million copies
per year. The general quantity of readers totals more than 66
000 persons. 14 specialized reading-rooms for 1000 seats function
at the Library. Over 400 displays are mounted yearly, among
them are subject and anniversary exhibitions and previews. Interlibrary
and International Loans allow 1000 libraries at home and abroad
to use the Library's resources. There exists the regular international
book exchange with 325 partners in 48 countries of the world.
At present time, the automated information system created on
the basis of local computing network, functions at the National
Library of Belarus. It unites more than 150 personal computers
of series PC AT.
The following library processes are automated:
- acquisition;
- bibliographic description of all types of documents, the
electronic catalogue reflects the acquisitions of the Library
since 1993;
- analytical registration of periodical and serial issues;
- creation and introduction of the databases;
- preparation and creation of bibliographic indexes published by the NLB;
- user's search in the electronic catalogue and the order of documents out of the collections;
- interlibrary loan services;
- statistic and registration of the readers;
- statistical information of stocks circulation.
The National Library of Belarus is the main country institution which is in charge of scientific research in the sphere of librarianship, bibliography and bibliology. The NLB is the centre of home, international and interlibrary loan and national retrospective bibliography.
The Library carries out methodological and scientific leading of the process of automation in the public libraries of the Republic of Belarus. The NLB insures the access of these libraries to the informational resources acquired and created by the Library.
The librarians of the National Library of Belarus took active part in the long-term development carried out in the frame of the Information Program of the Republic of Belarus (1991-1995) and in the period to 2000. The specialists' efforts were directed to:
- the work out of automated technology of centralized and corporated catalogization of national and foreign documents;
- the creation of BELMARC-format and provision the information and linguistic compatibility of the electronic catalogues and databases of the Belarusian libraries;
- the creation of the union catalogue of Belarusian libraries (national and foreign documents);
- the organization of the electronic services center on interlibrary and international loans and delivery of the documents with the help of modern information technologies;
- the ensuring of the users' free access to the whole repertoire of the acquired information resources.
The Library realises reference services with the help of the following information resources:
- the Library Collections;
- electronic Catalogue information;
- databases information, including the CD-ROMs of the Russian Book Chamber, the Library of Congress; and the following databases: Normative and Legislative Acts of the Republic of Belarus, Russian Legislative Base, etc.;
- information of the traditional card catalogues and card files.
The Library's publishing activity is aimed primarily at producing bibliographic indexes (more than 20 titles per year) which deal with Belarus. Among retrospective and current bibliographic tools there are such important issues as "The Book of Belarus, 1517-1917" (1986), "Bibliography on Belarus History: Feudalism and Capitalism" (1969), "Belarus in XVI-XX centuries print" in 5 volumes (1982-1989), (1991), bibliographic monthly "New Books: The review of Belarusian current books" (since 1960) and others.
The staff of the Library numbers more than 520 specialists including 400 librarians.
In 1989 the new project of the Library complex was adopted on the competitive basis, and a draft project was executed (the architects M.Vinogradov and V.Kramarenko).
|
|
