Alan Wagner (right, foreground), director of the International Resource Center at the Queens Borough Public Library, demonstrates the center's WorldLinQ, which makes the Queens Library's catalog searchable in languages other than English. Observing are (left to right) Lyudmila Belozerova, Klavdia Sukhinina, Nadezhda Chuprina, Taimyr Agaev (partially obscured) and Anastasia Kornienko. - John Y. Cole
From Oct. 21 to 30, the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress welcomed its second group of visiting Russian librarians within six months. From April 24 to May 2, a first delegation of nine librarians from the Russian Federation visited the Library of Congress, the Library of Virginia and its Virginia Center for the Book, and the District of Columbia Public Library and its District of Columbia Center for the Book. (see Information Bulletin, July-August 2001).
The April and October visits, both funded by the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) in Moscow, are important steps toward the creation in 2002 of book centers in at least 15 regional libraries throughout Russia. The new national book and reading promotion project, a program of the Open Society Institute (OSI), was announced in September 2001.
Both U.S. visits also are part of an international reading promotion project sponsored by the OSI, its Pushkin Library Megaproject and the Center for the Book. The project was developed in cooperation with the Section on Reading of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). It culminates in June 2002 with the participation of a group of American librarians and representatives from the IFLA Section on Reading in a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, and a subsequent visit to Russian institutions and libraries in Moscow and the nearby city of Vladimir.
The Oct. 21-30 visit of the 11 Russian librarians was already in place when the Library of Congress's buildings were closed on Oct. 18 for anthrax testing. The Library was the first stop on the tour and the schedule could not be changed. The basic orientation to the Library was presented in a nearby hotel. Scheduled visits were made to the Chantilly Branch of the Fairfax County Public Library (home of the Fairfax County Public Library Center for the Book, one of two affiliates of the Virginia Center for the Book) and to the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. The group made an impromptu visit to the Folger Shakespeare Library. Day by day, the visitors and their hosts hoped the Library of Congress would reopen. A highlight was an hourlong, informal conversation with Dr. Billington on Oct. 24 at a picnic table on the plaza in front of the Madison Building. The Library's buildings finally opened on Thursday, Oct. 25, but it was too late for the visitors; at 8:30 a.m., escorted by this writer and Center for the Book Program Specialist Anne Boni, the delegation left by rented bus for the Baltimore-Washington International Airport and their scheduled flight to Hartford, Conn.
Left, because the Library's buildings were closed for anthrax testing, on Oct. 24 the visiting delegation of 11 Russian librarians met with Dr. Billington on the plaza in front of the Madison Building. Taimyr Agaev (left), director of the Dagestan Republican Library, explains to Dr. Billington several of the publications being presented to the Library. Dmitry Poloznev, director of the Yaroslavl Regional Scientific Library, observed; center, the Connecticut State Library was one of eight libraries seen by the visitors on their 10-day tour. Lyudmila Belozerova (left), assistant director of the Ulyanvosk Regional Scientific Library and Elena Muravyova of the Russian State Library in St. Petersburg admire Russian photographs from the Connecticut State Library's collections; right, Louise Blalock, director of the Hartford Public Library, the home of the Connecticut Center for the Book, speaks about Hartford and the next day's "Wallace Stevens Walk." - John Y. Cole
Educational outreach and reading promotion projects were emphasized in visits to libraries and museums in Connecticut (Oct. 25-27) and New York City (Oct. 27-30). Just as valuable was the hospitality shown by all of the host institutions. In Connecticut they were the Connecticut State Library in Hartford; the Hartford Public Library, home of the Connecticut Center for the Book, where Chief Librarian Louise Blalock met with the visitors and hosted a dinner in their honor in one of Hartford's private clubs; the Mark Twain House in Hartford, where a private tour was arranged; and, in Farmington, the Hill-Stead Museum and the Lewis Walpole Library. On Oct. 27, Hartford literary entrepreneur Dan Schnaidt led the group on the 2-mile Wallace Stevens Walk, stopping at appropriate times to read from the Hartford poet's work. The Wadsworth Atheneum provided its own Russian-speaking guide to introduce the group to the institution, its library and museum collections and its outreach programs.
An unforgettable highlight in New York City was an early morning boat tour around the southern end of Manhattan Island, providing the group with a view of "ground zero," where the World Trade Towers once stood. New York Public Library hosts included president Paul LeClerc and Edward Kasinec, chief of the Slavic & Baltic Division. The day at the New York Public Library included visits to the Science, Industry & Business Library and the World Languages Collection at the Donnell Library Center. The last day, Oct. 30, was spent at the Queens Borough Public Library, visiting the Flushing Branch and its International Resource Center and the Central Library in Jamaica. At Queens the group enjoyed an informal luncheon discussion with library Director Gary E. Strong, who provided details about the library's operations and services, emphasizing the Adult Literacy Program and multilingual services such as the New Americans Program, which provides special services to the area's many new immigrants.
The delegates were: Taimyr D. Agaev, director of the Dagestan Republican Library, Republic of Dagestan; Lyudmila V. Belozerova, assistant director of the Ulyanovsk Regional Scientific Library, Ulyanovsk; Elena A. Chemodanova, head of the Reading Section at the Kirov Scientific Library, Kirov; Nadezhda T. Chuprina, director of the Belogrod Regional Scientific Library, Belogrod; Anastasia A. Kornienko, of the International Relations Department in the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature, Moscow; Elena G. Muravyova, leading researcher at the Russian State Library, St. Petersburg; Marina V. Novikova, of the Pushkin Library Megaproject of the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), Moscow; Dmitry F. Poloznev, director of the Yaroslavl Regional Scientific Library, Yaroslavl; Nina G. Rasputnaya, director of the Vladimir Regional Scientific Library, Vladimir; Valeria D. Stelmakh (group leader), a senior researcher at the Russian State Library, Moscow; and Klavdia N. Sukhinina, director of the Lipetsk Regional Scientific Library, Lipetsk.
This new Soros Foundation initiative is the third major Center for the Book cooperative project with Russian libraries and librarians. The first was a conference held in Moscow on Oct. 29-31, 1991: "The National Library in the Life of the Nation: The Lenin State Library and the Library of Congress." The second was an international conference, "Libraries and Reading in Times of Cultural Change," held in Vologda, Russia, on June 18-22, 1996 (see Information Bulletin, Sept. 16, 1996).
