Last week
was the 19th International Library Conference in Sudak. Sponsored by the
National Library of Russia and held at a beautiful conference center in the Crimean
Black Sea resort town of Sudak, this 5-day long conference attracts
participants from all over the world, including the United States, Canada, and
England. Professional translation is available in several languages, including
English, insuring full access to conference workshops and events for all
participants.
Since the
conference began nineteen years ago, the Gasprinskiy Library has hosted an
annual seminar for conference participants from the Turkic-speaking countries. This
year the theme of the seminar was "The organization
and maintenance of rare and valuable document collections in the national
libraries."
A representative from the
Republic of Azerbaijan spoke on the necessity for information security in
libraries. Representatives from the national libraries of Tartarstan and
Kazakhstan described the collections of rare books and manuscripts in their libraries.
Representatives from the
Gasprinskiy Library also contributed to the seminar. Medine Alimova, head of the Archives
Department, presented the archival collection program at our library which has
become the main repository for the archives of famous Crimean Tatar artists,
writers, and political leaders. Our information technology specialist, Lilya
Emirova, talked about book digitization and its importance in preserving the
literary heritage of the Crimean Tatars.
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| Medine Alimova from the Archives Department |
I also gave a presentation about
my work at the library, particularly the acquisition of book donations for the
library and the steps I take in that process.
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| I have a translator! |
More than fifty representatives
of Turkic-speaking countries attended the seminar. There was much discussion at
the end about proposals for future seminars and also about the possibility of creating
an organization of libraries from Turkic-speaking countries, an idea which had
been proposed before, but this year seemed to be finally taking hold.
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| Participants wearing their shawls, a souvenir gift from the library. |
