The Russian National Library turns 200 years old
Which of our beloved Publics will cross the threshold of its bicentenary? Will libraries still be as relevant and in demand as they were before the Internet became widespread? In order to get answers to these and many other questions, the VP correspondent met with the General Director of the Russian National Library, Anton Likhomanov (pictured).
Unfortunately, the conversation had to start with long-existing problems.
— How is the situation with the book depository? We know that you are currently in litigation with the contractor... Can we hope that it will be completed by the end of the anniversary year?
- The situation is actually very difficult. Moving along Moskovsky Prospekt and passing Victory Park, we see the new building of the National Library of Russia - this is only the first stage, which is 60 thousand square meters. m, and the second - 40 thousand square meters. m - being completed. Our general contractor, so to speak, has fallen into a coma and is in a state of semi-bankruptcy: he neither lives nor dies, but does not want to terminate the contract with us. It is solely for this reason that we could not spend the almost billion rubles that we were given to bring the library to fruition. Although for us the commissioning of the second stage is extremely important, because we currently do not physically have space to store newly arriving newspapers, music publications and a number of other materials. We hope that the trial will end as favorably as possible for us and, perhaps, we will put these new areas into operation.
— Last year there was a conflict related to the mass dismissal of librarians. There was information in the press that this was supposedly done in order to raise the salaries of the remaining employees...
— At the end of last year, about 200 of our employees retired. On this moment The staff of the National Library of Russia has 1,400 employees, wages have increased by two, or even 2.5 times. At the end of 2012, the average salary of a library employee was 13,000 rubles. The final salary at the end of 2013 was 30,240 rubles, despite the fact that the main payments occurred in the second half of the year. Let me give you an example: November - 42,000 rubles, December - about 60,000 rubles. The fact is that subsidies sent from Moscow to increase wages, arrive unevenly, but mainly in the second, third and fourth quarters. If we take St. Petersburg as a whole, then the average salary of a worker in 2012 was 30,346 rubles, and in 2013 - 34,991 rubles.
— There is a stereotype that only grandmothers work in libraries. Do young people go to work in libraries?
“Now young people want to come to us, but there are certain difficulties: we have a catastrophic shortage of vacancies. Any grandmother was once a young girl, and therefore we cannot say to anyone something like: “You are already 70 years old, it’s time to leave.” It is believed that flight attendants should be young, and if we see an older flight attendant, we already begin to think that something is wrong. Something similar happens with librarians, only in reverse: if the librarian is not elderly, then this causes us bewilderment. Now we can observe an interesting transition period. The fact is that when a young person, advanced in computers, is forced to come to the library for a paper book and he meets with an elderly librarian, a certain misunderstanding arises. However, this is far from a reason to ask an elderly person to retire. But specialists are being trained to work in our field, and we have entered into an agreement with the St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts: if smart guys are noticed at the library faculty, we will be introduced to them. And we, in turn, will be ready to take them on board, even if it creates additional jobs.
— What famous libraries in the world could the National Library be compared to?
— We are one of the five largest libraries in the world. Yes, the Lenin Library in Moscow is ahead of us in terms of collection size: we have 37 million copies, they have 40 million. Lenin also has another advantage - dissertations are received there, but we only have abstracts of dissertations, and this is an additional resource. If we compare the National Library of Congress with the Library of Congress, with the British Library, with the Functional Library of France, then there will be positions in which we are ahead of them: for example, we have more space for readers, we use the same software. What is the difference? The fact is that they have broader financial horizons, and this is primarily reflected in the fact that they have more opportunities to digitize funds. We cannot compare the salaries of librarians, since we live in different tax systems and so on. Otherwise there is not much difference between us. Although I feel the difference with Chinese libraries, the halls of which are literally packed, and the bookstores are crowded. The fact is that in China there is a pronounced incentive: a person either reads, engaged in self-development, and as a result becomes someone, or stands knee-deep in water in a rice field all his life.
— How often are the RNB funds replenished?
— Let's start with the fact that we have a Legal Deposit Law, according to which all publications published in our country since 1810 come to us: the more interesting ones in two copies, the less interesting ones in one. Another source of replenishment of funds is purchase. We have the means to buy publications. Why is this being done? Sometimes regular periodicals take a very long time: there was a situation when the magazine “Ogonyok” took and sent all the issues for the past year at once! In 2013, we spent 50 million rubles on purchases, including a database and literature for subsidiary funds. Some part of the amount was spent on the purchase of valuable materials, manuscripts, rare books, and so on. In recent years, we have been receiving about four hundred thousand documents. A lot of literature is now published in Russia, more than in the Soviet Union: in 2011 alone, 120 thousand books and brochures were published. Of course, such a flow of materials raises the question of storage location: after all, only we and Lenin do not write off literature - we store it forever.
— How are things going at the National Library of Russia? high technology?
— The question is complex. We, of course, try to keep up with the times, but sometimes this turns out to be very expensive: taking the same digitization, converting one page into a digital format costs 25 rubles. Working with a newspaper is even more expensive. But still thanks to the new software we will be able to organize stable access to our funds, or more precisely, to those resources whose license agreement with suppliers allows the transfer of information through the network.
— When will the system start functioning?
— I think by summer. We are currently working on licensing agreements, and soon those materials for which permission will be obtained will become available remotely. But it is worth noting that we have a large database of digitized abstracts. In theory, since they are copyrighted, they can only be used in the library, but our system allows registered readers to access that too remotely. We try to do everything possible to make working with our library convenient.
— You noted that library attendance is falling...
— Yes, five years ago the attendance figure was a million, now it’s about six hundred thousand. But on the other hand, the attendance of our electronic portal, where most of our holdings are presented for public access. As a result, the building of the National Library of Russia is visited by 600 thousand people a year, and the electronic resource is visited by 6 million. And I will say that this phenomenon is widespread. When I visited the Library of Congress last year, I contemplated the half-empty halls. If we are a pessimist, we can assume that children from 3 to 5 years old can no longer imagine themselves without a computer. But on the other hand, many scientific literature continues to be published exclusively in paper form, so those involved in science will be forced to visit our reading rooms for the time being. Also, everyone should understand that very soon there will be no more free content: the movies have already been dealt with, the texts will also be dealt with. A law will appear that will prosecute the owners of sites that distribute text content, and over time they will have to pay. For example, in a French library, if a book is not in the catalog, the resource automatically sends you to the publisher’s website, where you can purchase the book in in electronic format. Thus, the library will remain the only free information resource.
rocked by public scandals related to its activities general director Anton Likhomanov. All these years I worked there, in the oldest Russian public press repository, and could personally see from the inside much of what was happening.
It is widely known, for example, how in 2012 Likhomanov, fulfilling, in his words, an oral order from the Ministry of Culture received by telephone, energetically began mass layoffs of library employees. Many also know that the corresponding order was signed by Likhomanov’s deputy for administrative and economic matters, Vladimir Alexandrov. Alexandrov is not the only one whose back the general director tried to hide behind. The heads of departments were required - in a rude, categorical form that did not tolerate objections - to write memos addressed to the general director with the wording: “I ask you to reduce” the number of employees in such and such a department due to a decrease in the volume of work. So that, hiding behind such documents, Likhomanov could say that he acted at the request of the workers. However, events got out of his control; the mass dismissal of library employees did not take place then.
And here is a new scandal. This time, in connection with the expected resignation of the general director, whose contract with the Ministry of Culture expires in January 2016, his subordinates stood up for the boss. The immediate reason for " open letter“On behalf of the “RNB team,” the Prime Minister of Russia was informed by the appearance on November 20 in the Izvestia newspaper of information about his impending resignation. What has been happening since that moment, I would rather call a campaign organized by a group of activists. In order not to offend any of them, I will list in alphabetical order: Sergey Basov, Galina Mikheeva (she is also the initiator and author of the mentioned “open letter”), Anatoly Razumov, Evgeny Sokolinsky... All authoritative and respected people.
It is strange to read in the press now organized in support of the general director of the Russian National Library that his employees are afraid of layoffs in the event of his removal from office: they were afraid of layoffs throughout the entire period of Likhomanov’s leadership. Although staff layoffs on an unprecedented scale were avoided in 2012, mergers and liquidations of some departments were carried out. When Likhomanov was appointed to his current position, the library had more than 1,800 employees, but today it has only 1,300 staff members.
The general director's defenders give him credit for his knowledge of the library, explaining this knowledge by the fact that he has been working in it for thirty years. Correct: Likhomanov has long been an employee of the National Library of Russia, although with a long break for vacated Komsomol work. However, Likhomanov knows little about its structure in essence, the purpose and functions of its various divisions. This became especially noticeable when he headed the library. In all likelihood, the director was of little interest in the substantive side of the activities of the institution, within whose walls he spent many years. However, Likhomanov has accumulated many personal vulnerabilities and claims against many employees. Having become a director, he, instead of building internal and external activities libraries, in accordance with the challenges of the time, began to settle scores with “old enemies.”
Likhomanov’s first victims were people from the inner circle of Vladimir Zaitsev, whom he replaced as general director. Unable to fire all the people he disliked for any reason, he began to create conditions under which employees had to leave “for at will", and was very successful in this. He kicked the deputy general director for financial matters Tatyana Ivlieva, Deputy General Director for Administrative and Economic Affairs Vladimir Aleksandrov - a person who really knew and loved the library and did a lot for it and for its employees. These two key figures from the point of view of the activities of the National Library of Russia were dismissed at different times, but with the same haste, within one day, without ensuring any continuity in work or even a transfer of affairs. Many people had the impression that all Likhomanov was thinking about, snatching resignation letters “of his own free will” from the hands of his deputies, was how to quickly formalize the dismissals so that they would not have time to change their minds. In production, technical and economic departments he carried out a total personnel “cleansing”, recruited new people who knew nothing and did not know their way around the huge and complex library business.
Likhomanov’s “skillful leadership,” which defenders of the general director now point to, led in 2013 to the protest departure of an entire department from the library—the Center for Cultural Programs. Twelve people simultaneously submitted their resignations “of their own free will,” as a sign of protest against administrative arbitrariness.
Likhomanov treats his subordinates as if they were his serfs, whom he accidentally won at cards.
All personnel issues- from the reception and movement within the library of even the most junior staff - Likhomanov concentrated in his hands. Likhomanov's department heads and deputies were essentially deprived of all rights, having acquired only responsibilities, the main of which was to unquestioningly carry out the will of the boss. All positions of the library’s scientific plan, all decisions about what will be published by the National Library and what will not, are made and approved by the director personally. But, as always, hiding behind someone else’s back. In this case, behind the back of his deputy for scientific work, Vladimir Firsov, who must put his signature everywhere and on everything that he, Likhomanov, decided on the scientific side.
Take, for example, the latest department liquidations. In November, the Department of Library Technologies, which was expertly involved in the placement of collections, was liquidated. In the conditions of the National Security Service, where these problems are very acute, only an irresponsible manager could liquidate such a department. The same can be said about the liquidation of the Office of Machine Readable Record Formats.
It has long been a tradition in the library to openly discuss the decisions of the general director. It is dangerous not to please him: you can pay for it not only with a bonus, but also with a job. The library staff began to fear a lot. As one of them accurately noted, Likhomanov treats his subordinates as his serfs, whom he accidentally won at cards. Every time after another scandalous, “voluntary” dismissal, employees look at each other and ask each other the same question: who’s next?
Like a typical official of a well-known school, Likhomanov, trampling on those below him, obsequiously and unquestioningly tries to carry out any orders coming from above, acting like a cog in the system. But, apparently, the screw turned out to be defective, since they wanted to replace it. A letter in support of Likhomanov, addressed to the Prime Minister of Russia, was signed “on behalf of the RNL staff” by 430 people. This is only a third of the library staff, and even among them there are hardly half of those who truly sincerely support the current leader. Many put their signatures out of fear that Likhomanov, if left as director, would deal with those who did not sign in his defense.
At the same time, I can understand those who were outraged by the general negative assessment of the activities of the National Library of Russia voiced in Izvestia. I completely agree with Evgeny Sokolinsky: the National Library of Russia really still has a very strong team, it has serious achievements in various fields, significant not only for the country, but also for the rest of the world. The library tries to fulfill its mission, despite unfavorable circumstances and the essentially destructive efforts of its unsuccessful leader. It is difficult to break such a team.
In one of the recent publications, another opinion was voiced, to which one cannot help but react: “Another dissatisfaction of the Ministry of Culture is related to the scientific activities of the library. The department is perplexed why the majority of the 118 scientific employees of the National Library of Russia are engaged in “preparing and publishing ongoing bibliographic indexes” instead of research ". The Russian National Library has a Department of General Bibliography and Local History (OBIK), which employs about thirty employees. The department, in accordance with its purpose, is engaged in the compilation of bibliographic indexes, including ongoing ones. This is one of the main activities of any national library. Indexes prepared by OBIC have a high scientific reputation and are well known and in demand in Russia and abroad. In addition to preparing indexes, employees are engaged in research, the results of which are published, and they hold scientific conferences, in particular one of the largest international library forums in the country, the Bibliographic Congress. As for the rest (about 90) scientific staff, they are all engaged in the development of scientific, practical and research areas, in accordance with scientific tasks their departments. That is why the claims against these specialists seem unfounded and cause quite justified anxiety among many. It is not entirely clear why there was a need to defend the enormous work and reputation of the Russian National Library.
Nevertheless, the main motive for publications in defense of Likhomanov boils down to the fear that with his replacement it will become even worse. Therefore, probably, the former deputy director of the library, Galina Mikheeva, said in an interview with Radio Liberty: “I don’t think that Anton Vladimirovich is so bad. He is a normal director, we are used to him.” Indeed, someone at the National Library of Russia got used to this little authoritarian boss. What people don't get used to. But perhaps a large part of today’s problems with this glorious cultural institution lies precisely in this?
I came to the library in 1979 and worked there for thirty-five years, the last fourteen of which were in charge of the Archival Documents Department. The library has become for me, as for many of us, its old-timers, a second home and a temple to which you selflessly serve, giving of yourself. Many of my publications are dedicated to the library. My service history was simple and worthy, they usually say “an impeccable track record.” This continued until Likhomanov came to leadership of the National Library of Russia, and I was on his “black list.” The last years of my service were poisoned by methodical administrative pressure, unreasonable demands, claims, nagging, and insults. In the end, the general director got his way, last summer I submitted a request to fire me at my own request. But don’t believe it if someone tells you that I left the Russian National Library of my own free will: I, like many others, was forced out of it by A.V. Likhomanov.
Irina Zvereva – candidate of philological sciences, former employee Russian National Library
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Construction was stopped. In 2009, with a change in the general contractor, construction resumed. Work is progressing slowly; by 2013, the building was 90% complete. To complete the construction, planned for 2016, 950 million rubles were allocated from the budget. Anton Likhomanov born in 1964. Graduated from the Faculty of History of Leningrad state university. Work in RNB started in 1981 as a librarian, in 1990 he became deputy director for administrative and economic work, then head of the Collections and Services Department, deputy general director. On January 20, 2011, he was appointed general...
Anton Vladimirovich Likhomanov(b. September 16, 1964, Leningrad) - Russian library worker, from January 20, 2011 to January 19, 2016 - General Director of the Russian National Library, historian.
Biography
He began working at the Russian National Library in 1981 as a librarian. In 1987-1990 at Komsomol work. In 1990 he graduated from the Faculty of History of Leningrad State University.
Since 1990, again at the Russian National Library: Deputy Director for Administrative and Economic Work, Head of the Funds and Services Department, Deputy General Director. After the death of V.N. Zaitsev from October 2010 - and. O. General Director On January 20, 2011, he was appointed General Director of the Russian National Library. On January 19, 2016, he left his post due to the expiration of his employment contract.
Candidate of Historical Sciences.
Major works
- Newspaper "Russia" in 1905-1906. : (History of the emergence of Stolypin officialdom) // Book business in Russia in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. - L., 1990. - P. 46-55.
- The question of foreign language publications at the Special Meeting on drawing up a new charter on the press (1905) // Book business in Russia in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. - St. Petersburg, 1992. - Issue. 6. - pp. 56-63.
- I. Ya. Gurlyand and the Jewish question in Russia // Bulletin of the Jewish University in Moscow. - M.; Jerusalem, 1993. - No. 4. - P. 142-153.
- The struggle of the autocracy for public opinion in 1905-1907. - St. Petersburg, 1997. - 133, p. - ISBN 5-7196-0982-2.
- How to ensure library security. - M., 2002. - 112 p.
- Countering the ideology of terrorism and libraries. - M., 2005. - 112 p.
- Special meeting on drawing up a new charter on the press in 1905: personnel // Censorship in Russia. - St. Petersburg, 2005. - Issue. 2. - pp. 35-69.
- Dmitry Fomich Kobeko // History of the library in the biographies of its directors, 1795-2005. - St. Petersburg, 2006. - P. 194-211. - ISBN 5-8192-0263-5.
- Development of press legislation in Russia and France in late XIX- early 20th century: comparative analysis// Proceedings of the Department of History of Modern and Contemporary Times. - St. Petersburg, 2007. - No. 1. - P. 78-90.
Literature
- Who's who in the library and information world of Russia and the CIS. - 5th ed. - M., 2001. - T. 1. - P. 395. - ISBN 5-85638-019-3.
05/03/2015
49 days ago we sent a request to the General Director of the Russian National Library A.V. Likhomanov (pictured left) with a request to answer the editor’s questions. Not 7, not 30, but 49 days have passed, and there has been no response from General Director A.V. Likhomanov. was not received by the editor. And this means only one thing: there is nothing to answer not only regarding the solution of specific, long-standing problems, but also regarding the prospects for the development of the MFN.
E It can also be stated that this official violated the law of the Russian Federation “On the Mass Media” (according to Article 40 of which a response must be provided to the editorial office within 7 days) and the law of the Russian Federation “On the procedure for considering appeals from citizens of the Russian Federation” (according to Article 12 of this law, written appeal is considered within 30 days from the date of registration). To end with legal aspects, let me remind you that the National Library of Russia is a federal state budgetary institution, i.e. is subject to all of these laws. Naturally, such disregard for the law will entail consequences provided for by law.
But here are the questions I wanted to get an answer from Anton Likhomanov:
Commissioning of the second stage of the new building of the Russian National Library on Moskovsky Prospekt, prospects, timing;
Reducing the number of employees to increase the income of those left behind, facts;
Creation of a domestic Wikipedia, main parameters of the project, goal, deadlines;
Prospects and timing for electronic ordering of documents stored in the main building;
Work on the Primo electronic catalogue, problems with its performance and deadline for completing work on it, how many people are working on correcting errors and filling gaps?
I think that Anton Likhomanov understands: general words will not suit me, I know the situation in the library too well. In other words, the very first and most important problem of a library is its management. If A. Likhomanov does not even respond to a written appeal, demonstratively violating two laws of the Russian Federation at once, it means that he does not even want to admit and loudly declare the existence of problems with the National Security Service. And if problems are hidden and not made public, then they are not being solved.
This means that with the same Primo electronic catalog, things are just as bad as in the summer of 2014. The electronic catalog of the Russian Magazine Fund is poorly made, and no one is working to bring it to fruition. It is not even possible to find out when the second phase of the new building will be put into operation, which would make it possible to connect the disconnected collections of the Russian Magazine Fund in the new building, temporarily move the manuscript department in its place, and begin renovations in the manuscript department premises.
I would like to note - especially for the leadership of the National Library of Russia - that I do not invent these problems or collect them “from the outside,” but as a regular and active reader of the library, I myself encounter problems all the time.
A whole range of problems are associated with the reduction of employees, and I feel the results of this as a reader. For example, in March 2014, the Russian National Library opened an exhibition of books donated to our library by the House of Russian Abroad named after. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It was a very valuable and generous gift. Personally, I urgently needed one book from this exhibition: the author is the American literary critic V. Alexandrova, the book is called “Literature and Life: Essays on Soviet Social Development until the End of the Second World War” (New York, 1969). I ordered it because the books were on display at the exhibition with a code, but it turned out that it had not yet been processed and was not issued to the hall, and the employees of the processing department kindly offered me to read the book in their department, for which I was grateful to them. And it won’t be issued soon, they warned me. Well, I’ll read autumn more carefully, I thought.
A year has passed - the book is listed in the Primo electronic catalog without a code and is still not issued, it has not yet been processed, just as, obviously, all the other books from this exhibition have not been processed, which means one thing: the Russian National Library has not established reasonable deadlines for processing books and There are not enough personnel to quickly process incoming books. The book is there and it is not.
And staff reductions are underway - in any case, that’s all everyone in the library is talking about. But it is impossible to find out the real situation from the management of the National Library of Russia regarding the implementation of these “publicly significant functions” (PVF).
There are persistent rumors that the deputy. General Director for Library Work Elena Tikhonova decided to lay off all employees of the information and bibliographic department and liquidate the department itself. Supposedly there will be certification soon, not everyone will be certified, and the issue will be resolved automatically.
I don’t really believe in this, but Tikhonova herself also considered it inappropriate for herself to answer my questions, so I am discussing this topic as a probable hypothesis. If this happens, then we can talk about direct sabotage. Because of all the “publicly significant functions,” the most important and most public is direct communication between the reader and the bibliographer. It's not a matter of learning how to use catalogues, it's a matter of the methodology of finding the right books and articles. No one will teach at the National Library except a bibliographer. Employees who issue books at collection points do not have the appropriate professional competence. In addition, the Russian National Library has a lot of card and electronic catalogs; you also need to know which one to look in. The existence of bibliographers who advise readers is a long-standing and unique feature of the Russian National Library, and losing it simply because it is necessary to reduce the number of employees to save wages is a crime against culture.
Talking about how “bibliographers are not needed because now there is the Internet” is nonsense. The Internet does not replace the bibliographer, if only because the National Library is an independent, complex machine for scientific research like a hadron collider. The National Library itself does not prepare instructions for using the library as a “knowledge machine”. Therefore, readers learn how to use the National Library of Russia not on the Internet, but from bibliographers.
Another example. The foreign magazine collection was almost completely moved to the new building. But the service catalog of this fund was either forgotten, or left in the old building, and the premises were locked. Whether anyone uses it or not is unknown. An incomplete reader's card catalog was installed in the new building. It was impossible to use it then, and now. There is also an electronic catalog of this fund on the RNL website, but there is never complete confidence that it fully reflects the IZhF service card catalog. Employees are afraid that the unique service catalog of IZhF will simply be burned during the renovation of the premises.
And the IJF electronic catalog works something like this. You look, for example, for Nation magazine from 1967. You can’t find it. Then you discover that you have to write The Nation, i.e. with article. I write the name with the article in the request. Judging by the responses received, after 1917 the journal was not received by the Russian National Library, but this is not so. I know, and I have been using the National Library for 38 years, that some old foreign magazines with serf codes remained in the main building. At the same time, the reader’s catalog on The Nation card has an incorrect code, and the only reliable service catalog of the Foreign Magazine Fund is buried somewhere in the main building. Well, can all this be sorted out without a team of bibliographers?
Only the lazy do not criticize the Primo electronic catalogue. Just one example. I am looking for the book by Yuz Aleshkovsky “The Book of Last Words”. In the “author” column I write the author’s surname, in the “title” column - “Book of Last Words.” The search result is zero. There is no such book in the National Library of Russia. But I know who created the catalogue. Therefore, I remove the author’s surname and immediately receive a bibliographic description and code.
Dozens of similar examples can be given. Sometimes you need to remove the title, and if a book, God forbid, has two authors, then it’s better to search only by title, because the book is registered to only one of the two authors. Etc. In fact, it is necessary to reconcile the card general alphabetical catalog and the electronic catalog with the Primo electronic catalog, because at some point - no one can name it exactly - cards stopped being poured into the card catalog, only into the electronic OPAC, and then only into Primo , and it is absolutely known that not all records from the first two GAKs were included in the third. But for such work additional employees are needed.
Now about electronic library. Thanks to an order from Finland, the newspaper department of the National Library of Russia scanned the Literary Newspaper for the years 1929-1960 several years ago. We didn’t do any further because it wasn’t ordered. Naturally, on the NLR website only “pictures” are given, without recognition, which the NLR does not do. Why - I haven’t been able to get an answer for many years. I suspect that it was simply because the leadership of the National Library of Russia did not understand and still does not understand what it is and why researchers need it.
By the way, the Russian National Library is now purchasing a subscription resource from some Moscow company remote access, it is called East view (IVIS) and includes the full texts of a large number of Russian magazines and newspapers - in particular, Pravda, Izvestia, Literaturnaya Gazeta and a number of others, the magazines Questions of Literature, Questions of History, etc. All texts are recognized, and there is a contextual search. This is a unique resource for which the Russian National Library now pays money (access for readers from the National Library buildings is free), but it could have received itself if it had done this, in general, simple work, having unique funds. It is no longer possible to imagine working in a library after trying this East view. About the same as losing the Internet.
And when, in the midst of all this chaos, the Russian National Library announces that it is starting to work on a “domestic Wikipedia,” and Likhomanov also explains that it is necessary because “Wikipedia is controlled from the United States,” then I want to ask: maybe before you start improving Wikipedia and start using the money allocated for this super mega-project, first making your own electronic catalogs normal? Not for the report, but for real, like an adult ?
Mikhail ZOLOTONOSOV
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