Crimea 2000: The 7th International Crimea Conference

Citation

Pavlova, N. and Pavlova, E. (2001), "Crimea 2000: The 7th International Crimea Conference", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918dac.001

Crimea 2000: The 7th International Crimea Conference

Nadezhda Pavlova and Elena Pavlova

The ancient Crimean town of Sudak welcomed participants of the Crimea 2000 Conference (3-11 June) with bright sun, sea breeze, the fragrance of roses, cypresses, pine-trees and the ceaseless warbling of birds in the air during the day and, in the evening, with the bright shining of southern stars and noisy frogs croaking in park ponds. The Conference was organized by the Sudak Tourist and Health Center and was held there for the fourth time. The Sudak Center is a complex of 20 modern buildings in a large magnificent park. It is a piece of paradise where one doesn't feel tired after a hard day's work from dawn to dusk. Active work, business contacts, the broadest professional non-stop communication, as well as a pleasant time on the seashore are all part of the inclusive experience.

The 7th International Crimea 2000 Conference ­ the last in the second millennium ­ confirmed the authority, significance and value of this rather young professional forum. And, indeed, the numbers speak for themselves: from 230 experts from 15 countries at Crimea 1994 to 1,050 experts from 33 countries at Crimea 2000 (see Table I). And nowadays the Crimea Conference is by all rights considered to be one of the most prominent and important in the world.

Table I A Chronicle of Crimea Conferences

All Crimea Conferences are united under the general theme, "Libraries and Associations in the Transient World: New Technologies and New Forms of Cooperation." In contrast to earlier ones, this Crimea 2000 Conference was also devoted to the special topic, "Libraries, Publishers, Book Distributions and Education in a Single Information and Sociocultural Environment". (It is important to mention here that this very topic was not predetermined by the Conference Program Board, but was chosen according to the subjects of the presented papers.) However, the questions raised and discussed during the sections, workshops and round tables often exceeded the bounds of the main theme and covered all professional problems ­ from global theoretical to most private and everyday ones.

The first working day of the Conference started with the traditional Plenary Session, which was opened (also traditionally) by Yakov Shraiberg, Chairman of the Crimea 2000 Conference Organizing Committee. All the papers of the Plenary Session raised a number of questions and these were later considered and discussed at numerous special workshops and round tables. The 7th International Crimea Conference grand opening ceremony took place in the early evening of the very first day. It was held in an exquisite place of great historical interest near Sudak ­ in the ancient Genoese fortress, which dates from the fifteenth century (see Plate 1). The ceremony included a dramatized performance with many surprises and colorful fireworks. This heralded the success of the conference, brought all the participants together, and was surely fixed in their memories. The first full day of the conference day started with a most saturated program of papers and presentations, not only on the premises of the Sudak Holiday Home, but also in nearby locations. Among these were the cities of Yalta, Alushta, Feodosia, Koktebel, Simferopol, and Stary Krym. The Conference organizers arranged for bus transportation from Sudak to these other sites. So as to convey some sense of program intensity, it will be enough to list sections, workshops, round tables and other arrangements, indicating their general subject-matter. All the participants were unanimous in giving high marks to the high level of organization.

Plate 1 Venue for the CRIMEA 2000 opening ceremony

During the five days of the Conference, 11 sections were held including:

Worldwide Information Infrastructure and Interlibrary Cooperation;

Automated Library Systems and Technologies;

Online Technologies, CD-ROM and the Internet in Libraries;

Electronic Libraries;

Library Staff: Profession and Education;

Information and Linguistic Support of Library Information Systems;

Development and Preservation of Library Collections.

There were also 17 special problematic theoretical and practical workshops including:

The Ethics of Electronic Information;

Business and Legal Information;

Electronic Document Delivery;

Latest CDS/ISIS Developments, Extensions and Applications for Users (the workshop in memory of CDS/ISIS founder Gianpaolo Del Bigio);

Dewey Decimal Classification: Structure, Indexing and Use in Printed and Electronic Forms;

Modern Computer Technologies in Libraries for the Blind;

The Library as a Center of Environmental Culture;

CoBRA in the Information Jungle. Retrospective Conversion. Initiatives and Projects.

And others ­ 11 round table discussions on the most urgent topics, such as:

Prospects of International Cooperation in the Field of Library and Information Technologies;

How to Apply for Library Grants;

Development of Library Collections in National Languages;

Harmonizing of Library Law in European Countries.

And certainly the participants of the Conference were offered an extensive cultural program, including touring the most remarkable Crimean places of interest.

It is impossible to discuss in any degree the program of the Crimea 2000 in a review article. It would require much more space to accomplish this. But it is possible to confirm that the Conference has made an attempt to "grasp the ungrasped" and apparently it has succeeded. The participants were offered the opportunity to express their opinions, observations and views of the Conference, along with best wishes to the Organizing Committee during the final Plenary Session. The speakers thanked the organizers, expressing the desire and the hope of participating in future conferences. No criticism was heard. In conclusion, the members of the International Organizing Committee ­ Yakov Shraiberg, President (Moscow, Russia), Lester Pourciau, Vice-President, ILIAC (Memphis, Tennessee, USA), Evgeny Kuzmin, Vice-President (Ministry of Culture, Russia), Tatyana Prokosheva, Vice-President (Ministry of Culture and Arts, Ukraine) and Vladimir Zaitsev, President, Russian Library Association, all thanked the members and the organizers of the Conference for their teamwork and expressed wishes to their colleagues for continued success in their future creative work.

The Crimea 2000 Conference is history. It was acknowledged by the permanent members to have been the best and most rewarding of all Crimea Conferences. And Sjoerd Koopman, Coordinator of Professional Activities for IFLA (The Hague, The Netherlands), who has participated in more than 20 IFLA General Conferences, called the Crimean forum the best one in the world's professional society, as it harmoniously combined perfect working conditions with the possibility of a most pleasant rest in one's spare time.

The Conference Crimea 2000 said goodbye to the second millennium, while preparing to welcome the third. All who wished to participate in the Crimea 2001 Conference could fill in a registration form on site (with a considerable discount).

The 8th International Crimea 2001 Conference

"Libraries and Associations in the Transient World: New Technologies and New Forms of Cooperation" will be held under the aegis of IFLA. The year 2001 topic will be "Producers and Users of Printed and Electronic Information on the Way to the Information Society."

The following basic topics for presentations and discussions at sections, round tables, workshops and other events are envisaged:

Worldwide Information Infrastructure and Interlibrary Cooperation in the Information Society;

Development and Preservation of Library Collections

Cooperation of Libraries, Publishers and Book Market;

Official Publications;

Online Technologies, CD-ROM, Electronic Publications and Internet in Libraries;

Electronic (Digital) Libraries;

Automated Library Systems and Technologies;

Information Support of Education and Information Society;

Corporate Library and Information Systems;

Information and Linguistic Support of Library and Information Systems;

Library Staff: Profession and Education;

Development of Library Collections in National Languages;

Libraries, Municipal Information and Regional Studies;

Library and Information Services for the Disadvantaged;

Libraries and Museums in Global Information and Cultural Environment;

Bibliography and Library Science;

Ethics and Security of Electronic Information;

Ecological Information and the Role of Libraries.

A series of satellite events is also envisaged, including annual conferences of library associations and professional groups.

The 8th International Crimea 2001 Conference will be held in Sudak and in other famous Crimean locales: Yalta, Alushta, Feodosia, Kerch and Stary Krym. The best conference rooms in these towns will be placed at the disposal of guest and satellite events. During the "Crimea 2001", the "Sudak" Tourist and Health Center will accommodate only participants in the Conference.

You are welcome to the wonderful land of the Crimea and the Black Sea!

The Conference Web site:http://www.iliac.org/crimea2001http://www.gpntb.ru/win/inter-events/crimea2001

Nadezhda Pavlova is the Director of the Editorial Office at the Russian National Public Library for Science and Technology in Moscow, Moscow, Russia.Elena Pavlova is a student in the Philological Department at the Moscow City Pedagogical University in Moscow, Moscow, Russia.