Electronic Publications on Culture and Art in Russian Libraries (Based on the Materials of All-Russian Competitions)

Since 2004, the Russian State Library has organized all-Russian competitions of library electronic products on culture and art. In total, during six competitions, about 100 electronic publications has been presented, mainly by public libraries of regio­nal and municipal levels, as well as by federal, special and university libraries. Analysis of the competitions’ materials allows to say that the libraries of Russia produce roughly the same number of network and local electronic publications, while the share of network publications is gradually increasing; in addition to the original editions, deri­vatives are published; there are few updated electro­nic publications, although they are very convenient for online distribution. In content, there are information publications devoted to the most vivid manifestations of national and regional culture and contribu­ting to its preservation and development. Professional literature is provided to help specialists of libraries and other institutions of culture and art. Evaluation of the competitions’ electronic publications was carried out according to the following criteria: quality of content, compliance with the requirements for publications, design, functionality and technical characteristics. According to these criteria, more than half of the electronic publications parti­cipating in the 6th competition received average and high scores, which indicates a sufficiently high qua­lity of the electronic publications of libraries. Some publications received low scores mainly due to errors in the design and weak functionality. The main conclusion: libraries have occupied a stable niche in electronic publishing.