Tomsk State University Research Library and European network libraries: opportunities for cooperation

The article discusses the experience of interaction between Russian libraries and other cultural institutions with European network libraries: the European Library and Europeana. A brief history of those projects, one of which was started in 1997 and the other in 2007, is presented. At the beginning of the European Library project 43 national libraries of European countries took part in it, including the Russian State Library and the Russian National Library. Now the Europeana project brings together more than 1,500 cultural institutions all over Europe. Agencies of the European Library and Europeana are in the Royal Library of Netherlands; projects are financed both by libraries-members of the projects and by the European Commission. Russian libraries are poorly represented in the European Library and Europeana: the Russian State Library and the Russian National Library joined the project in 2007-2008, and opened access to their electronic catalogues and some digital collections. In additions, five Russian museums opened access to several of their digital collections. Thus, analyzing the previous experience, we can say, that the participation of Russian libraries in Europeana and the European Library is not systematic at the moment and the number of submitted information objects is extremely small. The article presents different points of view on the perspectives of possible cooperation. In particular, some experts believe that this kind of cooperation is ineffective; they offer the development of the National Electronic Library as an alternative. The general characterization of Tomsk State University Research Library collections, supposed to be provided for presentation to the European Library and Europeana, is shown; the reasons for the selection of collections are briefly justified. It is shown that the problem of content is very important: it should be interesting for the potential audience and should provide insights into the Tomsk State University Research Library funds as well. On this bases collections were selected both of European editions (incunabula, engravings and so on) and of materials showing the Siberian specifics (Siberian business documentation, manuscripts on birch bark). The structure of cooperation between Tomsk State University Research Library, the European Library and Russian National Library is being currently discussed. It seems that the implementation of these projects will allow Tomsk State University Research Library to attract attention not only of domestic, but also of European users.

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