Monthly Reports
Voronezh Civic Networking
April, 2000
In April the spade- works for opening of the public access point at
the Regional Juvenile Library were carried out. The Regional Juvenile Library
was not accidentally selected for stationing of the public access point.
For years, the Library has been organizing recreational activities and
served as a community center for young people. The Library houses various
clubs and associations and its work is an important contribution to municipal
programs, aimed to arrange extracurricular and recreational activities
for young people in Voronezh. (http://vcn.vorstu.ac.ru/win/grsector/intel/intel.htm)
We plan that installation of public access point in the Library will
help to improve the Library's informational services and also will contribute
to the development of communication and establishment of partnership relations
between various Voronezh youth associations and similar associations in
other parts of Russia and abroad.
On the 14th of April, the long-awaited opening ceremony of the public
access point at the Library took place.
The wide publicity of this event
in mass media has been provided by the project officers. Opening presentation
was attended by the representatives of the following organizations and
institutions:
-
Committee on Cultural Affairs of Voronezh Regional Administration;
-
Voronezh Regional Universal Scientific Library named after Nikitin;
-
Regional Children's Library;
-
Secondary School # 9;
-
Municipal Newspaper "Molodoj Communar" ("Young Communar");
-
"Russian Radio";
-
VGTRK - Voronezh State Television Radio Company;
-
Municipal Newspaper "Rabota dlia Vas" (" Work for You ").
Presentation of the project, its history, goals and tasks was followed
by the demonstration of the web-server "Voronezh Civic Network".
Then, project officers opened discussion and gave answers to the numerous
questions from the audience.
Valentina Emelianova, the director of the Regional Juvenile Library,
specified in her speech that the opening of the public access point at
the Library provides new opportunities for organization of intellectual
communication of Voronezh youth. Installation and functioning of the public
access point imposed a number of tasks that must be executed in the nearest
future: it's necessary to communicate the new library's service to the
local community, train of the librarians in main network services and organize
workshops to educate young users from the library on networking.
Valentina Kolyshkina , the chief of the Department of Recreational Activities
of Committee on Culture of Regional Administration, emphasized importance
of the new service in the Regional Juvenile Library and the new opportunity
for Voronezh young people to use the web and thus increase available information
resources. "It is excellent, - she also remarked, - that young users of
Civic network have an opportunity to publish their materials on the web.
However it's important to teach them "netiquette"(culture of networking)
as, unfortunately, big percentage of Russian web sites contain plenty of
slang and obscene language which is obviously very bad."
Ludmila Smirnova, Deputy Director of Regional Universal Scientific Library
named after Nikitin, wished successful work to the Regional Juvenile
Library, that is now housing the public access point.
The great interest to the project was shown by the editorial officers
of Voronezh State Television Radio Company -VGTRK and radio company "Russian
Radio ". The editor of VGTRK Sergei Synorov remarked, that in many respects
the tasks of the project are close to the directions of work of his company,
especially with regards to giving publicity to the regional problems.
The preliminary agreements on cooperation under the project with editorial
office of the VGTRK were reached at the meetings organized after the presentation.
Specific aspects of prospective cooperation are currently being discussed.
Unfortunately, the project officers did not hear radio programs about
presentation themselves, but were pleased and much surprised to receive
congratulation from Italy, where at this time one of the project officers,
executive director of Regional Foundation "Mass Media Defence Center",
Central Black Soil Region of Russia, Galina Arapova, was at the conference.
Attendees of the presentation expressed ultimate acclamation of this
event and encouraged the Regional Juvenile Library to act not only as the
"center of intellectual dialogue of youth", but also as an information
center, providing access to local and global information resources to the
community members of various ages.
Many visitors also expressed willingness to attend training sessions
offered within the framework of the project.
During this month, the technical maintenance and administrative services
of the central public access facility were also provided. The project Web-workshop
and full-time advisory services, providing consultations on various aspects
of networking, continued in April at the Central Public Access facility.
The work towards the formation of "Voronezh Civic Network" server was
continued. The collection and preparation of materials for the server was
continued.
The training sessions for users of Voronezh Civic Network were held
in April. Training was followed by seminars aimed to discuss with each
group the new possibilities presented to the community within the framework
of the project.
The photos of the public access point presentation at the library and
photos of training sessions at the central public access facility are incorporated
into the report.
The address of the public access point at the Library: Regional Juvenile
Library, 32, Nikitinskaya Street, Voronezh, Russia
Director: Valentina Emelianova
Telephone number : (0732) 52-17-13, (0732) 52-16-31
Vladislav Yurasov,
PI of VCN
e-mail: [email protected]
[English]
[Russian
KOI8 |
|
