National Project “Culture” in the Focus of the 7th All-Russian Forum of Public Libraries

Abstract

The article describes the work of the 7th All-Russian Forum of Public Libraries “Municipal Libraries of New Generation: The Regional View”, which was held on November 15—16, 2019 in St. Petersburg. It became the main library platform of the 8th St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum. The organizers of the Forum were the National Library of Russia (NLR) and the Russian State Library (RSL) with the participation of the Russian Library Association (RLA). The Committee for Culture of St. Petersburg and the Mayakovsky Central City Public Library, Leningrad Regional Universal Scientific Library and St. Petersburg Library Society made significant contribution to the organization of the Forum.The Forum of public libraries considered the first results of implementation of the National project “Culture” in the field of creating the model libraries of the new generation. The author reveals the content of the main events of the Forum — the plenary session and round tables devoted to the specific features of working with readers and book collections: “Municipal libraries of new generation: exchange of experience and ideas”, “The Year of Daniil Granin in public libraries in Russia”, “Public library in civil society”. The article reflects the main ideas of presentations by specialists of various levels — from federal to municipal. The author shows the place of model libraries in the system of public municipal libraries, summarizes the first results of competitions among the municipal libraries of the country, as well as describes the characteristics of unresolved issues and identifies the main problems and directions of modernization of libraries. The article raises the question on the place of model libraries in the network of municipal libraries in the country. The article presents the final document of the Forum with appeal to the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, to the RSL, the NLR and the RLA, as well as to the state authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation, local authorities, central libraries of the subjects of the Russian Federation, municipal libraries together with project offices of the subjects of the Russian Federation and model libraries of new generation.