The XXV Anniversary Annual Conference of the Russian Library Association took place in Petrozavodsk (Karelia) in May 2021. The Forum gathered delegates from different regions of Russia and foreign countries.

The main theme of all the events of the congress is Library 2030: Building the Future Today. Three fundamental goals form the foundation of the library strategy: ensuring universal and equal access to the information resources of the library fund, preserving cultural heritage, and reflecting the modern needs of life in the work of the library network.

The program of the congress was extremely rich. The participants discussed current problems of library theory and practice in 30 sections and roundtables.

At a joint meeting of the sections “Automation, Formats and Cataloging” and “Electronic Resources and Information and Library Services”, bibliographers and catalogers shared their views on the ways of developing bibliography in the digital environment; discussed the theory of metadata, related data and cataloging; considered the prospects for applying new cataloging formats. It attracted the greatest attention of specialists. During the meeting, the participants discussed the IFLA LRM conceptual model of bibliographic data and the international UNIMARC format. The topic of digitalization of bibliography became one of the key topics of the meeting. The participants of the joint meeting discussed the technologies of artificial intelligence and big data analysis; the representation of information resources in digital format in the network virtual space; the problem of information reliability. The discussion on the choice of approaches to the creation of a national infrastructure to support scientific communications demonstrated the keen interest of the meeting participants in the problem of integrating the resources of libraries, archives and museums.

The participants of the meeting of the Inter-regional Cataloging Committee discussed the problems and solutions of the implementation of the national standard of bibliographic description. The reports presented by the participants of the meeting were devoted to updating the methodology of bibliographic description in the light of the development of Russian cataloging rules and the introduction of new international documents; issues of practical application of the provisions of the national standard.

The session of the Section of Bibliography and Information and Bibliographic Services began with information about the results of the III International Bibliographic Congress, which was attended, in particular, by representatives of the national libraries of the world (Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, China and France). Then the meeting participants discussed the priorities of scientific and bibliographic activities for 2021-2024; the draft national standard for bibliographic references of online electronic documents; the quality of bibliographic lists in scientific monographs; problems of providing information services in digital format. Special attention was paid to the national bibliography, the creation of a national bibliographic repertoire; regulatory provision of access to bibliographic electronic resources; corporate cataloging as a form of bibliographic interaction; scientific support for the current state bibliographic accounting (in connection with the transfer of the functions of the Russian Book Chamber to the Russian State Library).

At the final plenary session, the President of the Russian Library Association, Mikhail Afanasyev, announced Nizhny Novgorod as the library capital of Russia in 2022.

Report contributed by:

Marina Neshcheret, Russian State Library (Moscow)

member of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Bibliography Section