The Ecology of Library: from Revolution (People’s Commissariat of Education) to the Present Day (St. Petersburg hosted the 6th All-Russian Forum of Public Libraries)

The article is devoted to the 6th All-Russian Forum of Public Libraries, held on 17—18 November, 2017 in St. Petersburg, which became the main event of library discourse at the Saint-Petersburg International Cultural Forum. It was organized by the National Library of Russia and the Russian Library Association. To the organization of the Forum contributed the St. Petersburg Committee for Culture, the Central City Public Library named after V.V. Mayakovsky, A. Pushkin Central City Children’s Library and the centralized library systems of Kronstadt and Nevsky districts, provided their facilities for holding the round tables.

There are considered the problems of transformation of public libraries in the twentieth century, and features of the present stage of development of libraries on the basis of new information technologies and social norms, which are the main issues that invited a lively discussion among the Forum participants. There are presented differences in the approaches to modernization and optimization of public libraries of Moscow and St.-Petersburg, the experience of attracting sponsorship for renovation of libraries. There is revealed the contribution of the Soviet period in the formation of the library system of the country and the difficulty of adapting to the economic policy of the new time. The main causes of reducing availability of library services, primarily in rural areas, are discussed. The conclusion is made on the inconsistency of state library policy, as evidenced by the absence of the concept of the development of librarianship for the future, and by the approval of the network normative standards, which may result in closing of up to 30% of the libraries in different regions of the country.

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