Cooperation between the Bar Raion Library and the Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Spirituality

The library sought to break the negative tendency to reduce their network and cut financing, which was not even enough for them to subscribe to periodicals or increase library holdings, not to mention modernizing their outdated material and technical resources. The state program to support library development, to provide internet access in rural areas, and, in the nearest future, to begin automation of the library holdings, as well as to create a favorable mechanism to ensure participation of the libraries in various grant programs, could be a key to success. Technical resources are outdated, and it is difficult for them to increase library holdings and to subscribe to periodicals. A rural library is able to resolve most of these problems. It is a place of spirituality and knowledge, the primary guide in education, professional growth, organization of leisure time for the public, provision of unique opportunities for the wide use of Ukrainian and international informational resources, accumulated by the libraries of Ukraine and other countries. Today, the future of the development of the rural libraries depends on merging functions of a traditional library and a modern information center. The Bar Raion Library developed cooperation with the Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Spirituality by receiving information about activities of the committee, in particular, announcements of the committee hearings. The library found out that the Committee on Culture and Spirituality planned to organize the committee hearings on the state-of-the-art of the rural area and decided to take part in the hearings to present to the MPs of Ukraine, representatives of the public agencies their vision of the state-of-the-art of the libraries and ways to improve the situations. The library sent a letter to the Committee Secretariat and was invited to make a presentation during the hearings. The representatives of the executive authorities, local self-governmental bodies, the public, academic institutions are invited to take part in the committee hearings. After the Committee members take a decision to organize the hearings, the library places an announcement at the web-site of the Committee and the Parliament of Ukraine, and all the parties concerned can apply in writing to take part in the event, to make a presentation or to make some proposals. A representative of the Bar Library was one of the participants and made sound proposals. The achieved results include drawing attention of the public to the willingness of the law-makers to improve conditions of the rural libraries. During the Parliamentary committee hearings on culture and spirituality, a resolution has been adopted to draft, and to submit to the Parliament in 2011-2012, the laws on operation and development of the public libraries in Ukraine. Also, the recommendations for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, State Agency for Science, Information and Innovations, Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, regional, Kyiv and Sevastopol city state administrations, and local self-governmental bodies have been developed. As a result of the hearing, the Committee has approved a resolution with a number of recommendations to the Parliamentary Committee on Culture and Spirituality, Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, local self-governmental bodies. This document is placed at the web-site: http://kompkd.rada.gov.ua/kompkd/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=45280&cat_id=45190. For further development of inter-sectoral cooperation, the library believes that the site of the Parliament of Ukraine and its Committees is user-friendly. A lot of information can be found there. The announcements of the committee hearings are placed on the web-site, and all the parties concerned can apply in writing to take part in the event, to make a presentation or to make some proposals.