Рассмотрены вопросы мировой информационной инфраструктуры и межбиблиотечной кооперации, создания автоматизированных библиотечных систем и технологий, в т.ч. онлайновых, CD-ROM, а также использования Интернета в библиотеках. Особое внимание уделено проблемам формирования концепции электронных библиотек, создания полнотекстовых баз данных, электронных справочников. Освещена роль библиотек и музеев в общем пространстве информации и искусства.

Рассмотрены вопросы подготовки библиотечных кадров, информационно-лингвистического обеспечения библиотечно-информационных систем, формирования и сохранности фондов, взаимодействия библиотек и книжного рынка. Проанализированы проблемы информатизации вуза, охарактеризованы корпоративные библиотечно-информационные системы, новые разработки, расширения и приложения пакета CDS/ISIS для пользователей. Особое внимание уделено аспектам сотрудничества специализированных и общедоступных библиотек в библиотечно-информационном обслуживании людей с ограничениями в жизнедеятельности, проблемам формирования фондов библиотек на национальных языках и др.

Предложены новые и недорогие методы удовлетворения потребностей пользователей библиотек Восточной Европы в религиозной литературе. Подробно описаны возможности комплектования отечественными и зарубежными книгами и журналами через различные организации (в том числе через библиотеки и церкви), издательства, частных лиц. Данная методика разработана на основе опыта библиотек США, результатов научных изысканий автора на базе венгерских библиотек, профессиональных контактов с коллегами из Восточной Европы,а также результатов многочисленных запросов в организации, которые могли бы выступить в качестве перспективных источников комплектования данной литературой. Обусловлено использование Интернет-источников получения информации, данных организаций, предоставляющих материалы бесплатно.

The growth of the number of WWW pages over the past five years is nothing less than astonishing. On any given day, anyone, almost anywhere in the world, can purchase Internet access from a local service provider and create a Web site of his or her ownchoosing. There is, for the most part, no editorial control over what might appear as a Web page and, as a result, an alarming amount of drivel is available to anyone with WWW access. This paper will examine several publications devoted to the question of WWW authenticity, will identify common techniques proposed, and compare and contrast these techniques.

Current information service provision for the visually impaired in UK is characterized in detail. The experience of "Share The Vision" partnership organization, its objectives, tasks and policy, program carried out in cooperation with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which is to ensure the access to library and reading services for blind and visually impaired people, as well as STV's involvement in the TESTLAB project, realized in a number of European countries.

Digital libraries are considered as technology support for creation and exploitation of the next generation of Ukrainian mono- and multi-lingual dictionary resources (UDR), which are based on the model of adaptive resources for the adaptive UDR-environments and integration of the interactions within these environments along different dimensions and scales. The results are based on the experience of the Digital Library of Ukrainian Language and Literature, that currently contains three components, namely, (1) a collection of primary sources of Ukrainian language and system components for dictionaries construction; (2) a collection of various Ukrainian dictionaries; (3) learning resources for users with different knowledge and skills levels in the corresponding domains.

In 1992, four polish libraries took the decision to buy integrated library system VTLS. Maintaining of the modern online catalogue under control of authority files seemed to be to great challenge for one library, so that co-operation between librariesappeared as a must. The representatives of libraries made a great pressure to establish the independent unit. It was called "Centre for Formats and Authority File" and established at the Warsaw University Library in 1996. There are two: Section for Formats and Name Authority, Section for Subject Headings Language and Subject Authority File KABA. At the present the Centre serves as a source of authority records for 20 libraries in country and co-operates with libraries using the other integrated systems (e.g. Horizon). Since January 1998, the representatives of libraries - VTLS and Horizon users and National Library in Warsaw have begun the co-operation in preparing to create the National Union Catalogue "NUKat".

Освещена история развития известной СУБД CDS/ISIS. Отмечены положительные и отрицательные стороны системы. Предложены пути устранения ряда недостатков базовой СУБД CDS/ISIS. Рассмотрена возможность использования альтернативного программного обеспечения для работы с базами данных CDS/ISIS.

The paper considers a complex of laws and provisions that regulate the principles of gathering, storage, dissemination of and access to information in Ukrainian libraries. Analyzed are current trends and activities of the Ministry of Culture and Arts of Ukraine, Ukrainian Library Association, and leading libraries.

The technology of digital scanning allows libraries an opportunity to simultaneously preserve and make widely available collections that are too fragile, too valuable, or too custody-restricted for use or distribution in their physical form. In combination with the institution-wide and world-wide network servers, digital images can be more easily accessed, served, distributed, and used, eclipsing the physical boundaries of walls and distance. However, critical non-technology issues should be considered first by any library undertaking digital scanning of its collections.

Public libraries are the right places to act as a mediator between the growing individual and the global offers of databases, Internet and multi-media. Their missions are to prepare children for an independent and responsible use of these options. Thetasks of public libraries have been often defined as follows: to bring children up to reading, to teach "media competence", to support independent learning, to be a cultural center, to offer an introduction to library and information work, to help to develop social behavior in dealing with cultural skills and information technology. In this respect reading culture is regarded as the basic qualification for self-determined use of audio-visual and electronic media. Definitions of reading culture and literacy, which determine large parts of library work for children, are pointed out.

Governments and intergovernmental organizations as well as public non-governmental organizations now generate large quantities of documents and information which shape our lives and mould the societies in which we live. The discovery, collection, bibliographic control, preservation and dissemination of accurate information from and about all these public bodies is perhaps the major challenge to socially conscious librarians for the new millennium. In response to this challenge, the standing committee of GIOPS, the IFLA Government Information and Official Publications Section, has adopted a new mandate and new goals in its medium-term program for specialists in the field, covering the years 1998 to 2001. This program of professional action recognizes that the world community of library specialists in public information and public policy shares a mission: to provide free and equitable access to quality information from and about governments and other public bodies, local, national or international, so as to ensure their accountability to the people they serve. The paper will discuss the specific goals adopted as priorities for professional action by GIOPS in the light of this mandate, and will provide information on the international conference programs, training seminars and resource development projects currently being offered by this IFLA section.

Representatives from the University of Illinois, the United States Information Agency, the Library of Congress, and other distinguished institutions would like to share information with Russian, Ukrainian, and other library directors on international educational opportunities available to their staff. Our programs offer training in information technology along with techniques on how to train others, and provide an understanding of librarianship in other countries.

Librarianship is undergoing significant changes and redefinition. We address the possible impacts of these changes on a syncretic code for librarians we describe in an earlier work. This paper cannot propose definitive answers to issues arising from those changes. Digital technologies have expanded our ability to create, disseminate, process, and digest information. These concerns are now global and so too must be the ethical and professional responses of librarians. We therefore urge a global dialogon professional ethics amongst librarians and other information professionals to respond to these new realities.

Retrospective conversion as a conversion of data from an old to a newer format is usually realized as a transfer of card catalogue into a computer form in a fast and simple way. The National and University Library in Ljubljana, Slovenia, started its first retroconversion project in 1997 with the oldest, partly handwritten catalogue, covering the period 1774-1947. The description of the catalogue is given, taking into account both cards' characteristics (size, handwritten/typewritten, scripts used etc.) and different cataloguing rules applied at that period (Austrian Library Instruction, Prussian Instructions etc.). The whole process was divided into separate phases according to technologies and human resources available, and specific procedures weredesigned (trancription, manual and automatic structuring, control etc.). The result are ca. 70,000 records in MARC format, which were included into existing library catalogue. Records for items published until 1830 were contributed to Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) Hand Press Books database hosted by Research Libraries Group (RLG). NUL is currently working on retroconversion of remaining catalogues (ca. 300,000 records) where different procedures have to be designed due to different characteristics. The experiences gained during these projects may be found useful by other libraries that are either starting or considering retrospective conversion.

The new key products of K. G. Saur Publishers are presented, in particular World Bibliographies on CD-ROM. French Bibliography from XY Century to 1997; Italian, English, Spanish Bibliographies from XY Century to late XX Century; International Bibliography of Maps and Atlases; Russian Bibliography; Ulrich's International Periodicals on Disc; others are characterized. The other important cornerstone of K. G. Saur is World Biographical Information System (25 complete archives, including Russian Biographical Archive). K. G. Saur has its 50th anniversary this year since its foundation in 1949.

The DAISY Consortium and its approach to this problem. The DAISY systems use international open standard to create `new' Digital Talking Books'. This paper outlines some difficulties and expands upon the remit of the Consortium.

A library is traditionally a place where information seekers come to find answers for their questions. Librarians have gathered information (primarily books and other printed material) and arranged it such that access to their treasures was simplified. And should the library no longer have the information needed, the librarians have over the years acquired resources to help one locate another location where help could be obtained. We prided ourselves on being information specialists, the place one came when one needed information. Underlying this picture are elements which in many ways no longer have quite the importance that they used to have. These elements are of a physical nature: the physical place, be it a community or a building, physical books, physical librarians, physical patrons. These physical objects have at the same time always imposed restrictions on us, our services, our patrons. They take up space (which has always been insufficient for our needs), cost money (which we never have enough of), get sick, have to travel to reach us, etc. Suddenly, however, the "virtual" world has become a reality, and with it we are presented with a world which appears to have none of the physical restrictions which our familiar world has.

Do you remember that years ago there were predictions of a paperless office with the introduction of computers? Since then, however, the amount of paper has increased, not decreased. Today we have predictions that the library will become obsolete withthe total networking of all information. Librarians who believe this will probably do their best to fight a losing battle. We are living in an information society, a society in which knowledge of finding information is of prime importance. In the past wehave said that we are information / resource specialists. These are the skills which will be in even greater demand in the future. The need for our services, for our skills will increase, not decrease. With one stipulation: if we don't prepare ourselves for the new demands which are placed on us, others will most certainly create these services (and probably earn a lot of money in the process). Traditionally we have avoided too much technology and hence when the inevitable acceptance of the new technology was in place we adapted it to our services. We seldom took an active part in the process. It is now up to us to make a major move in making our expertise a viable, visible commodity among the offerings of the institutions actively seeking customers for their servicess.

It would be wrong to assume that an individual library, much less an individual public library, can effectively compete against the big names fighting for a place in this market. Recently there has been a trend to create local consortia to offer effectively databases to a large public, so that the individual libraries do not have their budgets unnecessarily depleted. What we now need is to create much larger consortia offering our combined expertise in finding information, in providing answers to theincreased demands which are being placed on us. It will be up to us to find ways in which we can effectively offer and market these new possibilities so that we can position ourselves to have a visibility and accesptance within the virtual community similar to that which we have traditionally had within our local communities.

Presented is TESTLAB project funded partially (50%) by European Commission. The experiments were set up in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, and Greece. The general objective of TESTLAB was to carry out practical trials using telematics systems designed to provide visually impaired readers with improved access to library (public and academic libraries in particular) catalogs and documentation. The countries contributions to the project are discussed. TESTLAB experience convinced that using the public and academic libraries by the visually impaired enables the libraries to broaden their service base and user audience. Besides, the traditional libraries for the blind will also benefit from the processes owing to greater cooperation and wider use of electronic access and documentation.

The projects and products of the Dutch Library for visually Handicapped Students and Professionals are presented, in particular its project Music Information Resources Assisted Computer Library Exchange (MIRACLE). Described are the two projects that will probably have an impact upon the project: spoken music and enlarged music.