Editorial: Going to Gothenburg?

Abstract

We open this second issue of the year in what has become a traditional way, with an extensive article on libraries in the host country for this year’s World Library and Information Congress (WLIC), to be held in Gothenburg, Sweden, from 10–15 August. In her paper, ‘Swedish libraries: An overview’, Barbro Thomas – now retired, but with a distinguished professional career which included serving as a member of numerous professional boards and committees in Sweden and in IFLA – gives us a very readable overview of the Swedish library landscape. Her paper describes the background to public library development, the development of university and university college libraries and library legislation, and provides an overview of the national policy on literature and the remuneration system for Swedish writers, translators and illustrators. The paper concludes with a description of the new national structure with the National Library as the supervising authority for both academic and public libraries and suggests that cooperation between public and research libraries will deepen in future. The second paper in this issue is a revised translation of a paper presented at the 2009 WLIC in Milan, by Margarita Perez Pulido, a professor in the Faculty of Library and Information Science and a Director of the Documentation Service at the University of Extremadura in Spain, where she teaches planning and evaluation of information systems and professional ethics. Her paper, ‘Programs promoting reading in Spanish prisons’, focuses on a series of studies and findings that document the effectiveness of reading and writing as a tool for the rehabilitation of disadvantaged population groups, including prisoners. The paper provides an analysis of the current situation in Spain which identifies examples of best practices, analyzes methodologies, and examines the extent of innovation demonstrated by these programs within the unique prison environment, as well as in the context of the Spanish cultural and legal framework. Innovative services of a different kind are the subject of the next paper, ‘Innovative services for libraries through the Virtual Reading Rooms of the Digital Dissertation Library, Russian State Library’, by Nina Avdeeva, Head of the Department of Support of Access to Digital Resources of the Russian State Library, Head Manager of the Digital Dissertation Library (DDL) project of the Russian State Library and Chief Developer of the DDL website. The paper describes how the Russian State Library started the DDL in 2003 to ensure that its valuable collection of dissertations was safely kept and widely accessible. Virtual Reading Rooms, where readers can access the resources of the DDL, have been set up in various libraries in Russia and the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Within the framework of the DDL, the Open Digital Dissertation Library (ODDL) allows authors to place their dissertations or abstracts on open access at the DDL website. The Russian State Library continues to work on the development of the DDL in order to form a common information zone for researchers. Another aspect of ‘virtuality’ is the subject of a revised version of another Milan WLIC paper, ‘Virtual reunification as the future of ‘codices dispersi’: Practices and standards developed by e-codices – Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland’, by Anne Marie Austenfeld, a research associate with the Library which is a joint project of the University of Fribourg Medieval Institute and the Abbey Library of St. Gall. Her paper describes how the advent of the online digital library has made possible the virtual reunification of valuable medieval and early modern manuscripts – known as ‘codices dispersi’ – which are physically dispersed in various library collections. The e-codices website of the Virtual Manuscript Library aims to make complete digital images of dispersed materials accessible to scholars as an identifiable collection or unit, provide a context for serious study, and offer participating owner libraries the I F L A