On October 18 – 19 the 5th international congress "The Library as a Phenomenon of Culture" will be held in the National Library of Belarus.

The event will be organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus and the National Library of Belarus.

The grand opening of the congress will take place on October 18 at 10:00 in the conference hall of the library. It will be attended by delegates from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Poland, Russia, the United States and Ukraine. There are leading experts of libraries, research organizations, educational institutions, developers and manufacturers of software, hardware and information products.

The main topic of the forum of this year is "Comfortable library environment: new technological, material and technical solutions". At the plenary and section sessions it is planned to discuss: the design, construction and operation of library buildings; architecture, design and organization of library space; security tools and technologies; cloud computing technologies; information retrieval systems; electronic libraries, online resources; services and other topics.

Presentations, master classes and round tables will be held within the framework of the congress.

On the opening day, there will be ceremonies for awarding the winners of the 26th Republican contest "Bibliateka – Asyrodak Natsionalnaya Kultury", which is held annually for public libraries of Belarus, and winners of the Republican contest for the best Public Center for Legal Information.

On October 19, anyone can attend a public lecture by Charles Forrest, a professional librarian, head of 21st Century Libraries Consulting (USA).

The exhibition “Libraries of the future: technologies, buildings, equipment” will be open for two days. It will present the latest achievements in the field of informatization and technical equipment of libraries, a wide range of products and services of companies engaged in industrial production and sale of shelving, lighting and other equipment, design and maintenance of security systems and fire protection.

For more info: (+375 17) 293 28 81, 266 37 07
E-mail: pr@nlb.by