ILIAC UK BLOG

News from CILIP

iliacuk — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:41:17 +0000

CILIP has announced to its “customers” that training opportunities previously provided from Head office

will cease commencing 1st July 2011

for the full announcement follow link below

http://www.cilip.org.uk/jobs-careers/training/pages/default.aspx

LIBCOM 2011

iliacuk — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:40:06 +0000

ILIAC UK is happy to offer an accompanied programmed visit to to LIBCOM 2010

further details about libcom here http://www.gpntb.ru/libcom10/eng/

details of our programme on the ILIAC website http://www.iliacuk.co.uk/

or email: nbriggs@iliac.co.uk

Crimea Report No. 10, Saturday 12th June 2010

iliacuk — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:16:38 +0000

Took advantage of the warm sun (26 C) and water (22 C) to go for a swim in the Black Sea. It was very pleasant but I found that my swimming proficiency had severely deteriorated. Maybe I need to go to the leisure centre and swim more regularly when I get back home. I dried off on a beach bed and later found that my legs and chest were distinctly sunburnt.

Finally managed to have a very useful discussion with Yakov Shrayberg on a number of topics relating to ILIAC and ILIAC UK which, with my fellow directors, we will develop in due course.

Got down to writing up the ILIAC Minutes and these will be ready for handover tomorrow.

A car will pick me up at 1220 on Sunday to take me to Simferopol for the start of my train journey back to the UK at 1537.

Norman Briggs

Crimea Report No. 9, Friday 11th June 2010

iliacuk — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:13:30 +0000

The conference was now winding down and I cleared down the ILIAC stand and continued with admin work. Went into Sudak and got a bottle of Balsaam (type of brandy – never sure what it will taste like) and a bottle of blackberry flavoured brandy.

Went to most of the official closing ceremony but left before the end to get a shower and changed before the closing banquet.

The open-air banquet is quite an impressive affair. A wide range of cold Zakuski was set out on the table with plenty of accompanying drinks – red and white wine, shampankoe, mineral water, vodka – sampled most of these during the course of the evening apart from the water! The early part of the meal was accompanied by some high powered dancing by local teenagers – saw our regular waitress in a completely new light. Later the dancing was in the form of audience participation and I managed dances that I would probably never have dreamed of in other circumstances. There was also the opportunity for final conversations with a number of people. The event closed, more or less, with fireworks and I somehow returned to my room and slept soundly

Norman Briggs

Crimea Report No. 8 Thursday 10th June 2010

iliacuk — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:10:27 +0000

Spent the morning on the ILIAC stand and took the opportunity to catch up on publishing the Blogs and checking my emails. I have also been extracting some of the papers from the proceedings CD-ROM so that they can be machine-translated and manually edited when I get home and have access to my PROMPT translation system. The initial standard of translation is still pretty poor but it still saves time on my manual translation speed. It is effective if you are translating into your native language.

In the afternoon I attended part of the session on Internet technologies but was not very impressed with the papers I heard.

At 5 pm I went to the Round Table on the “Management of Library Associations and Library Innovations.” Unfortunately, with key people missing, it didn’t start until nearly 5.30 pm. We had highlights of some of the activities of the Russian Library Association (RBA), Ukrainian Library Association (UBA), ELNIT International Association and the Kazakhstan Libraries Information Consortium. These associations are all about 10 years old and are structured in different ways. The RBA has about 550 library members and receives some funding from the Federal government, particularly for special projects such as for preservation work in its member libraries. The UBA operates on the basis of personal membership and has over 1000 members. Membership fees only cover about 10% of its income which is dependent upon grants. This membership framework is similar to CILIP and there would appear to be scope for a constructive dialogue between the two bodies to assistance in development of the UBA and the personal development of its members. There appeared to be a consensus that training in Library Association management would be beneficial for those responsible for the management of these associations.

Norman Briggs

Crimea Report No. 7 Wednesday 9th June 2010

iliacuk — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:11:32 +0000

Some of the sessions are held at locations out of Sudak and I decided to go to the session on rural libraries and local studies being held at the Sovetskiy Regional Library. Although the main town of the region, Sovetskiy is really only a village on the flat irrigated steppe north of the coastal range of hills. After welcomes from the Chair of the local Council, Head of the Department of Culture and the Chief Librarian we got on with the session. There was an interesting presentation about the development of a new prototype mobile library from the ‘Pushkin Library’ in St Peterburg. Among pictures of a range of international examples was one from Shropshire libraries. There was a useful presentation on ‘Modern Library’: a new addition to the Russian professional literature. A presentation from the Department of Culture in the Kostroma region showed how they were integrating information and library services with other cultural services provided to people with various disabilities, especially blindness, to both adults and children.

After the session we had a look round a small exhibition of the work of local artists and a visit to the local museum. The regional library is named after M.I. Chub who was the commander of the local partisans during WW2 or The Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russia and some of the exhibits referred to their role as they pushed the Germans back across the Crimea. Decaying examples of a BRDM and a BMP outside the museum reminded me of the days when my Soviet military vehicle recognition was much better than now.

We went to the local hotel for lunch. There was a well-stocked table and our meal was introduced and accompanied by a group of singers and dancers in their beautiful local folk costumes.

On our return journey we went up into the hills near the Tatar town of Stariy Krym to visit an old Armenian Monastery which is occupied again and its buildings are being slowly restored.

Norman Briggs

Crimea Report No. 6 Tuesday 8th June 2010

iliacuk — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:03:39 +0000

I was scheduled as the third speaker in the first session of the morning for my paper “Our Professional Future. A View from the UK.” Although it was printed in English in the proceedings I delivered it in Russian – thanks to a translation by Andrey Zemskov and it appeared to be well-received. Other papers of interest were “The library as a multicultural centre and a source of information in the knowledge-based society.” from the State Scientific Library, Banska Bytrica, Slovakia, and “Information partnership between the British Higher School of Art and Design and the University of Hertfordshire in the context of current trends in UK Academic Libraries.” By Victor Zverevich of the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow. I knew Victor from several years ago and it was good to meet up again.

Following this session there was a presentation of Language Testing International’s testing system.

After lunch I went to the session presented by the publishing department of the Rudomino State Library for Foreign Literature. They had exhibited at the London Book Fair but had not been able to attend because of the flight cancellations due to the volcanic ash problem. It was good opportunity to meet the Director, Ekaterina Genieva to discuss plans for next year’s London Book Fair when Russia will be the Market Focus country. Events associated with this will start this Autumn and we agreed that I should make some proposals for ILIAC UK co-operation.

With many simultaneous sessions there are some hard choices to make on which sessions to attend. I would have liked to hear papers on key developments in relation to library automation and library management systems and to follow up on developments at Moscow libraries. Fortunately, a number of the more significant papers, but not all, are available in the proceedings on CD-ROM. I hope that we can translate some of these and make them available in English on the ILIAC UK website.

Norman Briggs

Crimea Report No. 5 Monday 7th June 2010

iliacuk — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:00:28 +0000

After the predicted overnight rain the first day of the Crimea Conference opened bright and sunny. At breakfast I found myself sharing a table with Andrea McGlinchey, Information Resource Officer at the US Embassy in Warsaw and her husband, a retired diplomat. The US was celebrating 10 years of their ‘American Corners’ program in which books and information relating to the USA are placed in selected libraries. For this anniversary they had sponsored the attendance of many of their ‘American Corner’ partners. Also sharing our table was Steffan Holst of Accucoms B.V. from Bonn. He had a stand at the exhibition primarily concerned with UK and US geological and medical publications.

The opening ceremony was an interesting blend of flamboyant showmanship involving the band of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and local children and interminable speeches of greetings from politicians who never learned the skills of the abstractor. A speech from Georgiy Grechko, USSR Pilot Astronaut, injected some humour into the gravitas about libraries, books and international friendship. With customary ceremony Yakov Shraiberg delivered his annual lecture “The first decade of the information century: the effect of the information and digital environment on the role and position of libraries in the developing society”.

The exhibition opened with the usual rush of literature collectors with no time for the exhibitors to make contact with real enquirers or renew acquaintance with customers. The exhibition probably needs to open gradually without ceremony. I helped Nadezhda on the ILIAC stand before we made our way to the Business Centre conference halls for the ILIAC Board Meeting. I had been invited to join the Board of ILIAC and was duly elected at this meeting. As the only native English speaker it fell to me to write the English version of the Minutes! Interesting points from the Board meeting included a proposal to change the date of the annual visit to the USA from March to October. This would be investigated but there was already a full timetable at this time of year. Following the update of the ILIAC website there were proposals for making seminar papers and photographs available. It was noted that on the 9^th June 2011 there would be celebrations to mark the 20^th anniversary of the founding of the Russian Federation and there was the possibility of some funding from the Boris Yeltsin Foundation to support ILIAC Objectives. It was also agreed to pursue further a proposal to work with Language Training International to establish language testing centres in co-operating libraries. LTI uses an oral communication technique as the basis for its testing rather than the grammar and vocabulary based testing used by the British Council.

I skipped the traditional opening ceremony while I tried to catch up on my blog writing and preparation for my presentation the following morning. I resumed the opening celebrations at the Fourchette – free wine and strawberries and the opportunity to network and dance your socks off! – followed by fireworks.

Norman Briggs

Crimea Report No. 4 Sunday 6th June 2010

iliacuk — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 06:58:14 +0000

After a leisurely journey across the northern part of Crimea we arrived on time at 0850 into Simferopol. Conference staff were on hand to meet delegates and six of us went in a people carrier to Sudak. Soon registered and settled down to sort things out in my room – twin beds and a balcony. Set out for lunch and soon began to meet up with friends from previous conferences. After lunch met up with Nadezhda Garmashova my fellow director at ILIAC UK to check out the ILIAC stand and add the pieces that I had brought with me. Soon got re-acquainted with Ukrainian beer at 6 or 8 Hrivna for a half litre.

In the evening Andrey Zemskov introduced me to the Director General of the Nekrasov Central Public Library in Moscow, Oksana Chuvilskaya and her colleague, Valeriya Suvorova. We had a very useful discussion over how ILIAC UK might facilitate greater contact with London’s libraries.

The weather had become quite windy with the promise of overnight rain. My room was quite airless so moved to the bed on the balcony and have enjoyed this each night since.

Norman Briggs

Crimea Report No. 2 Friday 4th June 2010

iliacuk — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 06:55:12 +0000

Before arriving in Warsaw I was able to practice my Russian in conversation with the Polish lady. On arrival in Warsaw I was able to deposit my heavy rucsac and bag with my laptop, etc, in it in a locker. I was then able to head for a tram to go to the Stare Miasto – Old Town. The Stare Miasto has been rebuilt in its original form after total destruction in WW2. I came across a group of blokes from Sheffield on a long week-end visit who where looking for Piwna (street) – Beer Street! I walked through the Old Town and via the Barbican to the Nowe Miasto – New Town which has also been reconstructed in its original form. There was a market in the main square where I bought a half litre of traditional non-filtered beer and sat down at a nearby table. I was intrigued by the GlaxoSmithKline logo on a booklet belonging to the man sat opposite me. It was a booklet about the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, in Polish. I was soon engaged in an interesting conversation with its owner and it transpired that he was an advocate of holistic treatments and was gaining intelligence about ‘the enemy’ – pharamaceutical-based medicine. On my way back to the station I passed the Presidential Palace where there was a photographic display of the State Funeral following the President’s death in the air crash on his way to the Katyn Memorial. I crossed the Wistla/Vistula by and impressive cable-stayed Syrene Bridge. There has recently been very heavy rains in Poland and the Vistula was in flood with a flow rate exceeding 10 knots and flooding of some adjacent land. Passenger boats were all tied up for safety.

My next overnight journey was to Kiev. I shared a compartment with three young Ukrainian students who had been on a sponsored cultural visit to Gdansk. I managed to negotiate a swap of my allocated upper berth for the lower berth. Crossing into the former Soviet Union involves a lengthy operation to change the carriage bogies from the standard European gauge to the wider Russian gauge. With associated customs and immigration procedures this can add 3 to 4 hours to the journey. The Kiev-Berlin train was the adjacent platform and the customs officials were removing plastic bags full of contraband cigarettes that hey had found inside the frame of one of the carriage bogies. This appears to be a frequent occurrence. Changing the bogies involves moving the train into a special shed where the carriages are separated then lifted on jacks: the bogies and removed and replacement wider gauge bogies rolled into place. The carriage is then lowered into place on the new bogies and the carriages reformed into a train.

Norman Briggs