8th Interlending and Document Supply International Conference, Canberra Australia 28-31 October 2003
 



To Russia with love. Copeter, a European Union project in St. Petersburg for library co-operation in general, interlending and document supply in particular

Julien Van Borm

Abstract | Paper in [PDF] Portable Document Format (PDF)
Presentation in Microsoft® PowerPoint® format

Library co-operation in the former Russia was implicit and everything including ILL was free. Since the early nineties of the past century there have been dramatic changes in the Russian society, perfectly reflected in the Russian libraries. However, there have been some improvements in the past two to three years. The overall economic situation is gradually changing for the better, the Soros Foundation, the World Bank and some other foundations are striving to improve the situation in Russian libraries, especially towards the digital library. So is the European Union doing through its Tempus project line. Tempus is essentially a transfer programme whereby staff and students of Central and Eastern European countries come to the European Union to find out about the developments there in order to change the situation in their home country.

Copeter (COoperation between university libraries in St.-PETERsburg) is such a project. It is to establish a consortium for the creation of union catalogues and a system of electronic document ordering and supply in St.-Petersburg. European Union partners are the Antwerp University in Belgium and the Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The Copeter project aims at:

  • lifting old barriers, hindering the co-operation between university libraries;
  • strengthening the management of library co-operation;
  • introducing new ICT in union catalogues and ILL;
  • linking ILL with digital repositories world wide.
 

 

 
  National Library of Australia Australian Library and Information Association International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions