On 3–5 July, a meeting of the General Assembly of the International Consortium EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) took place in Yerevan (Armenia).
In 2012, the theme of the Assembly was "From Gutenberg to the Internet is a new revival of libraries".
Co-organizers of the event were the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Armenia, the National Library of Armenia and the American University of Armenia.
At the event the representative from the Republic of Belarus was the EIFL national coordinator in Belarus, head of information support of innovative activities section of corporate interaction division of the National Library of Belarus Vyacheslav Britchkovsky.
At the meetings of the Assembly there were discussed issues about using of electronic information resources in libraries. They include electronic books (e-books) and resources of open access (OA). The OA technology is the most perspective direction to organize scientific communications in the Internet age. The participants in their reports paid a great attention to the expansion of OA to the electronic resources and creation of open access archives, including research papers, theses and periodicals. There were discussed problems in the coordination of libraries and national consortia on the issues about the liquidation of digital inequality. A separate session was devoted to technical and legal issues of e-books in library activity. Meetings between national consortia and the representatives of many publishers and information services were held during the Assembly.
Note: The EIFL consortium is a non-for-profit organization, providing assistance and comprehensive consulting support on the issues about a wide use of electronic resources for library users in developing countries and transition countries.
Today, EIFL partners with library consortia in more than 49 developing and transition countries from Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, former Soviet republics, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
The main EIFL activities are to develop national library consortia, support the exchange of knowledge on a global scale and build the network of continuous improvement of education in such directions as open access to publications, intellectual property, software with open code for libraries and creation of OA archives in the scientific and educational field.
In 2011, a session of the General Assembly of the International Consortium EIFL was held at the National Library of Belarus.
