American Library Association representatives visited the Presidential Library

22 August 2012 a delegation from the American Library Association led by Executive Director, Kieth Michael Fiels, visited the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library.

The American Library Association (ALA), founded in 1876 in Philadelphia, supports libraries and library professional education in the USA and around the world. The Association takes part in the development of library standards, issues books and organizes conferences.

The delegation also included Special Libraries Association CEO, Janice Lachance and director of the Public Library in Oak-Park, Dirdre Brennan.

The guests have been given a tour of the library including the visit to multimedia and exhibition halls. Then they learned about the work of the electronic reading room. The guests have highly appreciated technical facilities of the library, work conditions for readers and software enabling patrons to view books in 2D and 3D formats.

During the visit American and Russian colleagues discussed the issues of copyright for collections of documents published in open access, preservation of cultural heritage in Russia and USA as well as various aspects of activities of the Russian and American Library Associations.

Interaction between the Presidential Library and ALA has been developing since June 2012, when the library’s specialists first attended the ALA conference. The communication will continue in the framework of IFLA 2012.