Conference “Library for Publisher, and Publisher for Library 2”

On the 22nd of May, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania hosted an international conference titled “Library for Publisher, and Publisher for Library 2”.  In his welcome address, the National Library’s Director General Prof. Dr. Renaldas Gudauskas shared his excitement about the event and pointed out that it was one of the rare library events dedicated to discussions on intellectual products created by the National Library  and strengthening ties with publishers.

In the first half of the conference, Dr. Tomas Petreikis, bibliographer-researcher of the National Bibliographic Control Unit of the Department of Information Science at the National Library, discussed socially responsible leadership and systematic use of publishing standards in the publishing process, and looked into the most common errors concerning the provision of publishing data. The speaker presented the National Library’s publication “Publishing Data: Guidelines and Examples” to the public which is intended to help publishers to properly provide the most important information associated with a publication.

The publishing expert, Aida Dobkevičiūtė, spoke about the latest developments in the Lithuanian publishing industry including the mechanisms which are used in the country for promoting and funding the publishing and dissemination of as well as access to literature and which govern, broaden out and strengthen (or weaken) inter-institutional and inter-sectoral cooperation between participants concerned as well as their contribution.  Such an interplay in the context of the environmental factors in book publishing leads to a sustainable growth of the book publishing sector, as well as the variety and accessibility of relevant literature content in libraries. 

Ansis Garda, Head of the Collection Management Department of the Institute of Bibliography of the National Library of Latvia, shared the Latvian National Library’s experience in cooperating with publishers, gave an overview of the relevant laws of the Republic of Latvia that govern the legal deposit, the products created on the basis of the publishing data and the publishers’ portal managed by the Latvian National Library where registered publishers get ISBN, ISMN and ISSN, and which provides access to publication data.

Katarzyna Nakonieczna, Chief of the ISBN Task Team in the National Library of Poland, discussed the specific aspects of the cooperation between the ISBN Agency and publishers.  The National Library of Poland has created a user-friendly portal for publishers where registered publishers can get ISBN numbers via electronic means and provide metadata about future publications.  The data are provided in accordance with the ONIX standard requirements.  The main advantage of ONIX is the opportunity to provide a consistent way for publishers, retailers and their supply chain partners to communicate rich metadata about their products. Made Viljur-Voit, Main User of Publishers Portal Collection Development Department National Library of Estonia opened the second part of the conference.  She presented an overview of the activities carried out by the National Library of Estonia, the laws of the Republic of Estonia that govern the legal deposit, and the publishers’ portal launched at the end of 2016.

The conference also served as an occasion to present the Information System for the Creators and Disseminators of Public Information currently in development which is expected to be put into operation by the 1st of November 2019.  It will collect, store, track, analyse and publish, free of charge, the data on the creators and disseminators of public information who are engaged in public information activities as set out in the Law on Provision of Information to the Public of the Republic of Lithuania.  Following his presentation of the Information System for the Creators and Disseminators of Public Information, Deividas Velkas, Head of the Public Information and Copyright Department of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, had a long Q&A session with a lot of questions from the audience. 

Meanwhile Eugenijus Stratilatovas, Director of the Strategic Development Department of the National Library, informed about the future development of the Lithuanian Integrated Library Information System. Eleonora Dagienė, Director of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Press „Technika“  discussed about the challenges faced by today’s publishers of scholarly journals in Lithuania, and described the important role of metadata in this field. 

The event and the discussion were moderated by Dr. Nijolė Bliūdžiuvienė, Director of the Department of Information Science at the National Library. The international conference discussion with active participation from the representatives of publishers, pointed out  that the conference was organized just in time and was really relevant for all the participants involved, and that there are numerous challenges that need to be addressed in strengthening cooperation between publishers and libraries. The expectations expressed by publishers will help the National Library specialists to improve information tools for providing and processing publishing metadata, and will encourage them to seek more modern future solutions for the exchange of metadata between publishers and libraries.

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