Cooperation between the Presidential Library and Russia's new regions

The Presidential Library is developing cooperation with cultural, scientific and educational institutions in Russia's new regions. This was announced by Director General of the Presidential Library Yuri Nosov at a special event of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation “Project work on the full integration of libraries of new regions into the cultural space of the country”, which took place on April 18, 2024 within the framework of the All-Russian Forum “The Role of Central Libraries of Russian Regions in the Implementation of National project "Culture".

In September 2022, a significant and landmark event took place for Russian history - the reunification of Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions with the Russian Federation. The Presidential Library, as a national repository of digital resources on the history of the Russian state, develops cooperation with cultural, scientific and educational institutions in new regions of Russia.

In October 2022, during the Integration Forum of the Presidential Library in the city of Kemerovo, interaction with Donetsk and Lugansk Republican Universal Scientific Libraries was launched.

On May 24, 2023, within the framework of the scientific and practical conference of the Presidential Library, dedicated to the preservation and strengthening of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, cooperation agreements were signed with Krupskaya Donetsk Republican Universal Scientific Library and Gorky Lugansk Republican Universal Scientific Library aimed at creating a unified information space in the field of domestic and world culture, science and education, including history, theory and practice of Russian statehood and the Russian language. 

In April 2024, an agreement was signed with Donetsk State Pedagogical University.

It is also planned to sign agreements with Kuindzhi Mariupol State University during the first annual conference on social sciences in Mariupol, which will be held in accordance with the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation in order to “preserve the historical unity of the peoples of Russia”. 

One of the top priorities is to open remote electronic reading rooms of the Presidential Library in new regions of Russia, which will provide access to the entire electronic collections of the institution and allow residents of the regions to join library events.

In 2023, four digital collections were prepared and posted on the Presidential Library's portal: Donetsk People’s Republic: Pages of History, Lugansk People’s Republic: Pages of History, Kherson Region: Pages of History, Zaporozhye Region: Pages of History. They include historical research, visual and cartographic materials. The collections are based on documents from the Russian State Historical Archive and the State Archive of the Russian Federation. Close cooperation with regional institutions will make it possible to add these collections and create new ones on current topics.

Work is underway on the continuation of the film “Library Front”, created in 2020 by the Presidential Library together with the Eurasian Library Assembly and presented on the Presidential Library's portal. Based on archival documents, the activities of the republican libraries of the Soviet Union (currently the national libraries of the CIS countries) from 1941 to 1945 in the occupied territories, on the front line and in the rear were presented. The second part of the film will be devoted to the fate of libraries on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR during the Great Patriotic War and the dedicated work of libraries in new regions in modern difficult conditions.

Another area of activity is the organization of joint conferences and workshops, the implementation of scientific and educational projects in the field of history, Russian language, national culture, science and education.

Representatives of the Presidential Library are scheduled to participate in the International Scientific Conference “History of Donbass: Analysis and Prospects” which will take place on April 25. During the event, the collection Donetsk People's Republic: Pages of History will be presented.

As part of the cooperation, it is planned to attract representatives of the scientific community of new regions as lecturers, as well as young people as listeners to participate in the video lecture Knowledge of Russia.

It is worth noting that in the 2023/2024 academic year, more than 100 students from new regions joined the Russia in the Electronic World Olympiad in history, social studies and the Russian language. Thanks to cooperation with libraries, schools, and universities, the number of participants from new regions will increase. Teachers from new regions actively participated in the all-Russian competition of pedagogical projects “The Future of the Fatherland in the Hands of a Teacher” which the Presidential Library annually holds with the support of the Ministry of Education of Russia. Thus, in December 2023, the winner in the category “Best social studies lesson” was Natalya Anatolyevna Litovchenko, a teacher at gymnasium № 6 in the city of Donetsk, Donetsk People’s Republic. 

As part of the interaction, special attention will be paid to the internship of specialists from Donetsk and Lugansk Republican Universal Scientific Libraries, and after the signing of relevant agreements, to other libraries in new regions in the field of processing information resources and servicing users of the electronic reading room of the Presidential Library.

The Presidential Library is the first electronic national library of Russia and is under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation. The library is a national electronic repository of digital copies of the most important documents on the history of Russian statehood, and as a multifunctional cultural, educational, scientific, information and analytical center.

The Presidential Library's collections digitally include books and periodicals, newsreels, photographs, scientific and educational films, theses, archival documents and materials that spotlight the history of Russian statehood, the theory and practice of law, and the Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation. The volume of the electronic collections is more than a million depository items. 

Full access to the Presidential Library's collections is provided in the electronic reading room located at the address: Senate Square, 3, structural divisions of the library in Moscow and Tyumen, as well as in more than 1,600 remote access centers to the resources of the Presidential Library opened in the Russian Federation and abroad.