The Russian State Library (RSL, Leninka) has developed a pilot project to preserve the Internet’s “most significant” information about military operations in Ukraine. On this subject informed RBC Director of RSL Vadim Duda.
“It is not a question of interpreting facts, but of reliable knowledge. A yellowed newspaper strip can be assigned very precisely, and the scientist working with it knows that no one on that strip has changed a single comma. But in our time, 99% of information is disseminated on the Internet and does not end up in the written press. On what will the researchers rely who, in five to ten years, will write about the difficult period of the special military operation? Duda noted.
In his opinion, there is no guarantee that in a few years the archives of sites that wrote about the military operation will remain in their original form, so it is important “to prevent the distortion of history”.
“It’s not really about politics, but a very calm, cold and neutral approach to the fact that we cannot allow history to be distorted. If we don’t, someone will rewrite it for us and do it electronically,” Duda said.
The library plans to submit its project to the Ministry of Culture in the summer of 2024. Now experts are developing a methodology for selecting information sources and a system of filters for published materials.
Duda noted that he opposes “pumping everything off the internet.” In his opinion, it is necessary to search, filter and keep unchanged only that “very small amount of quanta of information that left a kind of trace and changed the opinion of the community”.
Duda also suggested printing some “significant websites” and social media correspondence for the archive and affixing a bibliographer’s stamp, which confirms the date and fact of publication.
On the banning of LGBT propaganda
According to federal law, the RSL must retain all printed materials that have been published in Russia. According to Duda, the ban on “LGBT propaganda” will not become an obstacle.
“So far, in my view, there is no prescriptive practice of enforcing this law. We have not yet received any instructions or instructions from the Ministry of Culture on the need to remove something from the shelves. All books are available in the issue, ”said the director of Leninka.
Since the end of 2022, the media and telegram channels have been writing that books with LGBT characters, as well as works by authors opposed to the military operation or recognized as foreign agents, have been removed from libraries.
Culture Ministry head Olga Lyubimova said in February 2023 that the department had not compiled any “blacklists” of books and authors, and publications about the existence of such lists “greatly offend librarians themselves”. At the same time, the librarians themselves, in a conversation with journalists, confirmed that some books were taken off the shelves for political reasons.
