On March 5, the Library officially welcomed 11 librarians from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as interns in the Soros Foundations-Library of Congress Librarian Intern Program.
The three-month program, which is co-sponsored by the Regional Library Program of the Open Society Institute (a Budapest-based Soros Foundation), supersedes the Visiting Fellows Program, which ended in 1995 after training 38 people in three years. The new program shares its predecessor's goal of training participants to promote open information access in their home countries, as an essential feature of democratization.
However, the new program is original in two ways: First, it is designed specifically to promote Internet training and access. The interns will spend their first month at LC, receiving Internet training as well as general orientation and management training.
Second, 10 local institutions have agreed to host the interns for eight weeks, starting in April. The host institutions will provide training, work experience and Internet access. Moreover, the interns will be able to observe firsthand how libraries in a democratic society serve their constituencies.
The interns also will receive a week of field experience at the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In a reception in the Madison Building's West Dining Room, many of the 11 interns met their LC hosts for the first time, as well as representatives from the host institutions.
Larisa Sviridova, chief librarian of the Novosibirsk Regional Library in Russia, chatted with Mary Randolph, deputy director of the Alexandria Library in Alexandria, Va. "We are just introducing automation," Ms. Sviridova volunteered about her own library. "I expect it to be much more sophisticated here."
Marek Krosniak, head of the Jagellonian University Astronomical Observatory Library in Krakow, Poland, listened as his host - Brenda Corbin, head librarian of the U.S. Naval Observatory - explained her plans to take him to astronomical libraries in Baltimore and Charlottesville, Va., as well as the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The Jagellonian astronomical library is just beginning to automate a collection that is over 200 years old, Mr. Krosniak said.
"The Library of Congress has a very similar system. I can see how our problems are being solved here."
Mr. Krosniak also hopes his visit helps him prove to his superiors that his library needs more staff to handle the automation. Like libraries nearly everywhere, the Jagellonian library suffers from staff shortages, he admitted.
Sally McCallum, chief of the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, welcomed the guests on Dr. Billington's behalf.
Librarians all over the world have the same mission and services, Ms. McCallum commented. "Our profession can always have a common dialogue," she said. "I can visit libraries in Moscow or Latvia, and they're the same as ours.
"Where we differ is in our methods. That's what the Soros Foundation is interested in having us share."
The class of 1996 and its host institutions are: Ludmila Adamirova, Central Food Library, Institute of Agricultural and Food Information, Prague, Czech Republic (National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, Md.); Evgenia Ivanova-Batzelova, Medical University Library, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.); Maris Jaagosild, Estonian National Museum, Tartu, Estonia (Library of Congress, American Folklife Center); Natalya Kovaloya, Byelorussian Cartographic and Geodetic Association, Minsk, Belarus (National Archives II, Cartographic and Architectural Branch, College Park, Md.); Marek Krosniak, Astronomical Observatory Library, Jagellonian University, Krakow, Poland (Naval Observatory Library, Washington, D.C.); Doina Lica, Romanian Academy Library, Timisoara, Romania (National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, D.C.); Edite Muizniece, Latvian Academic Library, Riga, Latvia (University of Maryland, McKeldin Library, College Park, Md.); Jaroslav Susol, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia (Catholic University of America, Mullen Library, Washington, D.C.); Larisa Sviridova, Novosibirsk Regional Library, Novosibirsk, Russia (Alexandria Library, Alexandria, Va.); Daniela Toth, George Baritiu (Public) Library, Brasov, Romania (Arlington County Central Library, Arlington, Va.); and Elektra Tsigaridas, National and University Library, Ljubljana, Slovenia (George Washington University, Gelman Library, Washington, D.C., and Library of Congress, Science and Technology Division).
