On October 25–26, an international scientific and practical conference “Integration of disabled people into socio-cultural and information space: tasks and functions of libraries” took place in St. Petersburg.
The conference was arranged by the St. Petersburg Library for the Blind and the Russian Library Association and with the support of the Culture Committee of St. Petersburg. In the conference participated library directors and employees, representatives of civil society organizations, scientists from the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and the USA.
The National Library of Belarus was represented at the conference by chief librarian of the Library service department O.A. Nesterovskaya with a paper “The role of the National Library of Belarus in library and information service provided to visually impaired people”.
The following questions were considered at the conference:
- public consciousness as a factor of social adaptation and integration of disabled people into society;
- arrangement of space to provide service for disabled people;
- use of new information technologies in service for disabled people;
- innovation forms of information and library service for disabled people;
- library employees training to get additional skills in serving disabled people;
- social partnership of libraries in questions of rehabilitation and integration of disabled people into socio-cultural and information space.
During the conference an excursion to the information computer center of the St. Petersburg Library for the Blind was arranged. Participants of the conference became acquainted with the services provided by experts of the center with the use of typhlo-technical means.
