The Presidential Library contributes to the development of information society

The Presidential Library has initiated modernization to formal publication of legal acts, integration of systems of information and legal support of the government bodies. This corresponds to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 07.05.2012 № 601 «On the main areas of improving the system of public administration." The document says that by July 15, 2013 the online access to open data contained in the information systems of government bodies of the Russian Federation has to be provided. As it was noted at the meeting in the Presidential Library, consolidation of private and public information resources will eliminate the fragmentation of resources, inability to compare data, and a significant duplication of information.

It was decided that in April 2013, theoretical and practical conference annually held in the Presidential Library will address important issues of electronic legislation. There will be detailed discussion of obtaining, storage and use of information in electronic environment, the legal regulation.

According to the participants of the meeting, the official publication of legal acts in electronic form will remove bureaucratic barriers and unload media, will improve the efficiency and reliability of the official publication of legal acts to ensure free access to the official texts of legal acts for state and local government agencies, organizations, businesses and individuals.

There is an urgent need to ensure the timeliness, completeness, reliability, urgency and accessibility of official legal information in electronic form, also by improving official publication of legal acts, integration of information and legal support of the state government.

The Presidential Library has experience and rules of systematization of information and provision of access to it. In December 2010, the Presidential Library and the Science and Technology Center of Legal Information, "System" of the Federal Security Service of Russia signed a cooperation agreement which provides that the parties exchange electronic versions (graphic copies) of legal acts of the public authorities of the Russian Federation.

During 2011-2012, the Presidential Library received from the Russian Federal Security Service digital copies of legal acts, including the decrees and orders of the President of the Russian Federation and federal laws, the laws of the Russian Federation and other documents. These were documents dated to 2007 - 2010. Currently, the website of the Presidential Library features about 4,000 decrees and 1200 orders issued by the President of the Russian Federation.

Electronic copies of the original texts of legal acts are a new type of document for the scientific processing in library practice. The first national electronic library of Russia has conducted a study using the submitted legal acts, which formed the basis of the methods to describe legal acts used in the practice of the library. On the basis of the methods were elaborated the "Guidelines for cataloging digital copies of sheet documents containing orders and decrees of the President of the Russian Federation" as supplements to the Russian cataloging rules. This experience can be used in the future for a single approach to the organization of the legal regulation of the publication of official documents.

The strategy of development of the information society in the Russian Federation provides for the formation of public centers of access to government information resources, including the establishment of a state system of legal information. Given the experience and the efficient activities of the Presidential Library to develop a regional network, it is proposed to consider the possibility of organization of such centers at the representative offices of the library in the regions of the Federation.