Library and Book in the Digital Age: Project Development Vectors

Abstract

The purpose of the article is understanding of the place and role of the Russian State Library — the National library of the country — in the development of book industry as an active participant in the modern exhibition process of the event-related nature, including the “Red Square” book festival, held this year for the fifth time.The Russian State Library has the capability not only to present its own publishing products at the festival fair, revealing its rich collections, but also to position itself as an active subject of communication, stimulating the book market and giving the publishing business the meaning and values of socio-cultural activity.The book festival, which took place on June 1—6, 2019 in the centre of Moscow, dictates certain formats for presenting the versatile activities of the Library and reveals its strong project focus. Based on the material of major professional branch events of the Russian State Library (RSL) within the framework of the “Red Square” book festival and a number of publications of periodicals, the article considers the project development trends of the RSL related to the implementation of the “Culture” National Project 2019—2024. The author highlights the new trends in book publishing, distribution of publishing products and development of library projects, as well as considers the essential characteristics and outlines the main stages of work of departmental projects on modernization of municipal regional libraries and National Electronic Library (NEL).The joint strong discussion of at first glance purely library projects in the publishing environment expands the library-information space, creates grounds for the formation of multi-level communications and corrects approaches to resolving the problems.