On my last day in Belarus before leaving, we visited Polotsk and Vitebsk, near the Russian border. It was a very full day. Unfortunately, due to a hard drive incident, my pictures of this day are lost. Peter Lapo and I were driven by a young man to Polotsk. While driving, we had an excellent discussion about a set of indicators that the Ministry of Education requires of libraries, and a new set of indicators that a consortium of libraries, in which the Belarusian State University Library was taking a lead role, had developed in response. There were formulas constructed based on the number of students, the number of courses, and the number of textbooks. Electronic textbooks were also considered.

Interestingly, one of the measures recommended that an amount representing 2% of the funding for faculty research, provided by the government, be given to the library to support resources for faculty research. In the US, the indirect cost rate, or facilities and administration rate, negotiated between large research universities and the US Department of Health and Human Services often assigns 2% of the rate to library support. So this recommendation seemed very reasonable. There were also recommendations about seating, number of computers, etc.

Polotsk is one of the oldest cities in Belarus, and is located on the beautiful Dvina River and the Polata River. We met Tatsiana Govorova, director of the Belarus State Agrarian and Technical University, who was our guide. The city was one of the battlegrounds for the Vikings in the late 10^th century, as they swept down from the north on their way to Kiev and eventually Constantinople. We visited the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, which was one of three cathedrals of the same name, the other two located in Novgorod and Kiev. It was Orthodox, until it was destroyed by Tsar Peter the Great in 1710. Then it was rebuild by the Poles as a baroque Roman Catholic cathedral.

We visited the nearby Simeon of Polotsk Library and Museum, a museum dedicated to book printing. Regretfully, many of the exhibits are reproductions. Francysk Skaryna was born in Polotsk, and established a printing press in 1517 in Prague. He was one of the first publishers in Eastern Europe, and translated the Bible into Belarusian using the Cyrillic alphabet. His books have a distinctive frontispiece featuring himself.

We drove to Vitebsk, also on the Dvina River, and also ravaged in the fighting between the Nazis and the Red Army. We were met by Alexander and Olga, librarians from Vitebsk, who were our guides for this city. It is now a city of the arts, and the home of Marc Chagall. We visited the house of Marc Chagall and the Marc Chagall Museum and Art Center, which was wonderful. However, the highlight of the trip was the visit to the Zdrawneva, a village outside of Vitebsk, in which Ilya Repin lived for several years. Repin, a realist painter, is associated with the Ukraine and his final house outside of Saint. Petersburg, but his house in Belarus is striking. It was destroyed after he left by the peasants to whom he gave it, but it was re-built in 1988. It is the extraordinary house of an extraordinary artist. There is a gazebo in the back, and after touring the house, Alexander and Olga created a beautiful picnic of fresh vegetables, pork, fruit, bread, vodka, and wine. We toasted each other and libraries. Tatsiana made the interesting point that English is an easy language to speak, because English speakers are forgiving of bad English. Her English was very good.

It is this picture I hold in my mind’s eye, a picture composed of librarian friends, good food, good drink, discussing issues in a place of great natural beauty and artistic significance. In lieu of photographs, it is this memory that I bring back to the US from my all too brief visit to Belarus.

The website for Khatyn is excellent, and in English, so I will not recount the story here.
http://khatyn.by/en/
Yet, here are a few facts.   In response to a partisan attack in which a well-known German officer was killed, the Germans encircled the village of Khatyn on March 22, 1943.  The inhabitants of the village were rounded up and herded in the barn.   The barn was burned to the ground with the villagers in it. Those who tried to run for safety were shot. The log homes in the village were then burned, leaving only the chimney to mark the sites.  149 people including 75 children died.   Amazingly, six people survived, including the blacksmith, Joseph Kaminsky.  After the Germans were gone, he looked for his son, who was still alive, but who then died in his arms.

Khatyn has become a symbol of all the 618 Belarusian burned villages and their inhabitants, and the 185 villages that were never rebuilt.   It is also a monument to all civilian deaths in all wars.  Perhaps some of my reference students could help me here, but it is my sense that civilian deaths were relatively low in WWI and have increased dramatically as a percentage of total casualties in WWII and subsequent wars.   As we achieve greater sophistication in our societal organization, build better weaponry, and have a better understanding of human rights, it seems we are also much more willing to take the lives of civilians to advance the cause.   What I took from Khatyn is that Khatyn is in all of us, and despite its warning, it will happen again.

The chimneys of Khatyn, each representing a burned home. The bells ring every 30 seconds

One in four died in Belarus in the Great Patriotic War. The three trees symbolize the living. The flame represents the missing.

A representation of a missing village, with some dirt or other material from the village in the central container, sitting on red fire.

The other missing villages.

Piotr, Vadim and Olga: father, son and son's friend. All work in libraries.

]]> http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/2009/07/12/khatyn-national-memorial-complex/feed/ 0 http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/2009/07/11/the-belarusian-state-museum-of-the-great-patriotic-war/ http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/2009/07/11/the-belarusian-state-museum-of-the-great-patriotic-war/#comments Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:20:51 +0000 plum http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/?p=446 Friday, July 3, is Independence Day in Belarus.    We attempted to see the parade of tanks and other military vehicles and to hear Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus.   However, we were turned back at a security checkpoint because of my knapsack.   I realized that, while Belarus women carry small purses, the men rarely carry anything.

So we went to the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Nyezhavizhimosty Avenue.  The Great Patriotic War is the Eastern front of WWII, and this calamitous event is still very much alive in the memory of Belarus people.   But first, a little background, borrowed in part from the excellent guidebook on Belarus, written by Nigel Roberts, published by Bradt.

Germany voided the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of Non-Aggression by invading the Soviet Union at the Polish-Belarus border among other places on June 22, 1941 under Operation Barbarossa.   The attack on Minsk comprised of aerial bombardment by blitzkrieg and the Second and Third Panzer tank groups.   Six days after the border was crossed, Minsk was taken.   Stalin’s policy was to buy time by falling back to the defence of Moscow, taking plant and machinery from factories, thousands of people from the civilian population, and museum and gallery artifacts, back to the east.

The Nazis regarded both Jews and Slavs as subhuman, which permitted them to be treated as animals. The local population was pressed into slave labor, and the public parks were the sites of mass hanging.   Jews had been the third largest ethnic group in Belarus.   The population of the largest Belarus cities at the time of the invasion was over 50% Jewish.   Some 800,000 Jews, 90% of the Jewish population in Belarus, were killed during the Holocaust.

Slavs were also subhuman in Nazi eyes, and starvation was a Nazi strategy. Generalplan Ost (east) was part of Hitler’s Lebensraum (living space) plan, and fulfilled the Drang nach Osten (Drive to the East) ideology.   Under Generalplan Ost, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine and other areas would be ethically cleansed, and the land opened up for German colonizers.   Pieces of this plan were implemented through death camps and enslavement.   At the same time Soviet and Belarus partisan resistance grew and harassed the occupying German army.   The response of the Nazis to partisan attack was often the burning of the local village with its inhabitants.    On July 3, 1944, having defeated Operation Barbarossa and then launched their own offensives, the Soviet Red Army arrived in Minsk.   The destruction of the city was almost total.   Most of the houses, factories, and administrative buildings had been flattened, while road, rail and bride infrastructure had been bombed.   A city of 300,000 civilians in 1939 now had 50,000 people.

The Belarussian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War chronicles the terrible events of WWII, and documents the famous Belarusian partisan movement that undermined the occupation.   I discovered that one of  my colleagues at Simmons had been to this museum 20 years ago on a guided tour, and as the guide went through the museum, apparently for the first time, she wept.

My guide, Piotr Lapo, explained the differences in the weapons, and their effectiveness in stopping tanks.   I was struck by the somber faces in the black and white photographs of the fighters, partisans, and civilians, all of whom stared out of the exhibit walls with similar, penetrating gazes.

The Svisloch River in Minsk after the Independence Day parade

Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War

Red Army advance through Minsk - a floor map in the museum, which everyone carefully walked around

Black and white photograph on wall of Museum

Fortunately, limesurvey access returned the following morning. We set up 10 accounts, went the computer lab at the Belarusian State University Fundamental Library, and were ready to go. July 3 marks Independence Day in Belarus, the day that Soviet troops liberated Minsk from the Nazis some 65 years ago. The day is traditionally celebrated with a military parade, and is the beginning of a long weekend. There was considerable interest in ending the workshop early on Thursday, July 2, to take advantage of the long weekend. It seemed that many people have access to a dacha, a cottage in a rural area that has been in the family or in the spouse’s family, and leave Minsk for the weekend. This early closure meant dropping the exercises on SMART Goals and Balanced Scorecard, but these exercises may have been closer to management techniques than assessment techniques. During the week, I focused on evaluation and assessment, and while techniques for using the data to generate goals are certainly helpful, these management techniques are perhaps a separate program.

The limesurvey exercise worked very well, and should I do this workshop again, I will give this exercise much greater emphasis. The lack of formal instruction was no problem. I went through a sample question, and then the participants designed their own three question survey, clearly having understood everything that was expected. I would make this group assignment more ambitious, and have the participants come out of the workshop with a working survey in Russian for their library.

This workshop concluded the formal aspect of the program. There was a briefing with the IRC staff, but I was not very helpful with constructive criticism since in my view the logistics had been organized beautifully.

The next three days were spent seeing sites in Belarus.

Computer workshop using limesurvey - Belarusian State University Fundamental Library

Terry

The next day, Wednesday, I had only one three-hour presentation, on “Assessment of Electronic Libraries:  Methods and Tools,” which focused on ARL e-metric standards, web surveys, transactional log analysis, COUNTER standards, and how to analyze the collected data.   This presentation was the first of a two-day workshop/presentation on library assessment.   The second day would be hands-on, and would take place at the computer lab of the Belarusian State University Fundamental Library.  The presentations and exercises for these two days benefited by being scheduled at the end of the week.   By now, I had a clearer sense of what was expected, and revised the lectures and exercises accordingly.   On Wednesday we would cover theory and techniques.

On Thursday we would do hands-on exercises, both in print and online. I intended to use limesurvey, an interesting web survey creation tool, which Linnea Johnson and I had used before.    Its primary advantage is its language packs, which although not complete, are good.   It was important to find a Russian language survey tool to use.   I had two reservations about using limesurvey.   Firstly, it was installed on the GSLIS server, and I was not sure about the network from Belarus to Boston.      However, we have used this tool previously with XAMPP as a local installation, obviating the need for the network, so we had a plan B.   Secondly, I was not confident that simply turning on the Russian language pack, showing a sequence of steps to write a question, and letting the participants design a survey would succeed as an instructional approach. The lecture on theory appeared to go well.

That afternoon I attended a July 4th reception of the US Charge d’Affaires.   The reception was held at the country house of the US embassy, about 35 km outside of Minsk.  The political situation with US-Belarus foreign relations is complex, and if someone wants an accurate representation of the US concerns, see: http://minsk.usembassy.gov/ From my point of view, it appears that there is much change and transition at this time.   The ambassador and most of the embassy staff had been asked to leave over one year ago.   There was only a small staff left, including the public affairs officer (PAO) and the Charge d’Affaires.   However, both people in these positions are being cycled out, and the new PAO and Charge d’Affaires were at the reception.

The country house is beautiful, sitting on a lake.  The reception was very pleasant, and I met publishers, other librarians, the new embassy staff, the person in charge of IATP – a networking initiative, and others to whom the solicitous IRC librarians introduce me.  I stayed to the end of the party.

A minor adventure occurred that evening as it appeared that the GSLIS installation of limesurvey was down.   I sent out a flurry of emails, and waited for morning.

Terry

It is a new building, shaped like a diamond, completed in 2005. There are pictures at the English website, http://www.nlb.by/portal/page/portal/index?lang=en
It is a radical design for a building, and even more unusual for a library. The diamond is perched on a point, and its light displays can be seen for miles at night. The book depository is not in the basement, as is typical of many large Russian and former Soviet Union libraries. It is on the fifth floor. Although I didn’t see it, there is even compact shelving.

The inside of the library is even more spectacular, with hundreds of computers, four exhibition areas for art, a open, impressive, entrance lobby, a circulation desk that makes one want to go up to it just to be seen in the vicinity of such a design, and a metal and glass architecture, necessitated by the diamond shape, which is also beautiful. There are many curves inside the library, usually not a good design for square books, but it all seems to work. A librarian gave an excellent presentation of the many online Russian and English databases and digital information resources available to the over 100,000 patrons of the library.

The book delivery system, sending the books from the shelves to the numerous (15?) readings rooms is a marvel. The books are placed in a container on wheels and then whisked away on tracks to the reading rooms on other floors. The book carts are returned empty and upside-down on another track. It is a very efficient system, apparently made in Germany.

In the afternoon, the second presentation was on “Association of Research Libraries (ARL): activity, mission, goals, and results,” at the Minsk Regional Public Library, named after A Pushkin. Since I am not an employee of ARL, I relied on slides provided by Martha Kyrillidou of ARL for the presentation. The audience was the Belarusian Library Association Council. The BLA was founded in 1992, and it seeks to help in the development of the library systems in Belarus and to help solve problems common to Belarusian libraries, among other goals. The purpose of the presentation, I think, was to learn about ARL to see if any of its initiatives and areas of responsibilities are suitable for the BLA. There are approximately 9,500 libraries in Belarus, and the BLA has approximately 1200 individual members from different types of libraries.

The Minsk Regional Public Library named after A Pushkin is one of 12 libraries in Belarus with American Corners.   American Corners are partnerships between the Public Affairs sections of U.S. Embassies and host institutions. They provide access to current and reliable information about the U.S. via book collections, the Internet, and through local programming to the general public.  Unfortunately with the departure of American embassy staff, the American Corners program in Belarus has stopped.   This American Corner is still functioning, but is frozen in time, with no new materials added.

American Corners in Minsk Regional Public Library named after A. Pushkin

Front Entrance of the National Library of Belerus

Computer and reading area in the National Library

Group photo after the talk for the Belarusian Library Association

]]> http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/2009/07/06/national-library-of-belarus-and-the-belarusian-library/feed/ 0 http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/2009/07/04/lectures-for-it-managers-and-library-students-and-faculty/ http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/2009/07/04/lectures-for-it-managers-and-library-students-and-faculty/#comments Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:18:48 +0000 plum http://alanis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches/?p=372 The next day, thanks to the powerpoint slides provided by Martha Kyrillidou, Director of ARL Statistics and Service Quality Programs, and Raynna Bowlby, my colleague at GSLIS West who gives workshops on library assessment, I am ready.

The first lecture was at the Belarusian Scientific and Technical University Scientific Library, and the audience was managers of IT.   The topic is “New trends and developments in information technology in U.S. libraries.”  I specifically asked for this session, and the IRC generously translated a survey on IT resources to this group.   I was interested in the current situation in IT in university libraries in Belarus.   Based on the results of the surveys I received, translated by Piotr Lapo, the technology is good.   The servers seem Windows based, not running open source, and the workstations are contemporary.   There are fewer workstations and servers than one would find in US university libraries, but the skills, infrastructure, and enthusiasm are there.

On Monday afternoon, I spoke to the library science faculty and students at the Belarusian University of Culture and Arts, on the topic “Assessment of library information technology and library systems in U.S. libraries: Methods and Tools.”
This lecture discussed LibQUAL+, MINES for Libraries, COUNTER data, and other assessment issues involving electronic data and library systems (ILS).  The audience asked very good questions, and we had a productive discussion.   After the lecture, we had a very useful conversation with Nikolai Yatsevich, the Dean of Information-Documental Communications Faculty.

Alexey Shalaban is blogging some of these lectures on his library’s blog.
See:  http://inf.by/library

Terry

Library Science group - framed by LibQUAL+

Welcome from Alexey Skalaban, Director, Scientific Library Belarusian National Technical University

A question from the IT group

We arrived to find an original windmill for grinding grain, an open-air museum, and a working farm, recreating life in the 18th and 19th century.   We toured around the facilities, observing craftsmen making horseshoes, whistles, and other items.   I was given a horseshoe, made on demand, and gave a quick nod to Allen Smith, beloved, departed GSLIS faculty member and farrier.   A local drink is distilled on the premises, and we toasted good health to each other.   It made the vodka at lunch seem mild.   Lunch was excellent, both in food and in conversation.   Where else could you have a spirited conversation about the relative merits of eIFL v. Ebsco’s consortial pricing for VirLib, the consortium organized by the National Library of Belarus, while sitting in a lovely restaurant in a working farm in the country.   The Belarusian Library Association had set up BelLibNet, giving access to a number of university libraries to 7,500 ejournals in social, economic, humanities, natural, technical and medical sciences.   For organizational reasons, the consortium had been reconstituted as VirLib under the National Library of Belarus.   I am a strong supporter of eIFL and its competitor, INASP PERII, and was deeply engaged in this discussion.

We drove back to Minsk, leaving the resolution of consortial access for another day, although the conversation shifted to Russian, so the problem may have been solved without my knowledge.   I attended an interesting jazz performance that evening.  Evgeniy Vladimirov’s Jazz Club lies under the Palace of the Republic in Oktyabrskaya (formerly Central) Square on Nyezhavizhimosty (formerly Francyska Skoriny) Avenue.   Nyezhavizhimosty Avenue is a wonderful, wide street that apparently connects Brest to Moscow. During WWII (the Great Patriotic War) Minsk was occupied for 1,100 days by the Nazis.   Of the 825 major building on this street at the time of the German invasion, only some 80 survived when the Red Army came back through on the way to wreak vengeance on Germany to the west.   The city has been entirely rebuilt, and it is spectacular.   The streets are filled with people walking. Promenaders walk up and down, often hand in hand.  The custom is to dress well at all times, and the young look stylish.  I walked to the Jazz Club, followed the chic patrons to the unobvious door, and had a wonderful evening sitting with a Norwegian family; the mother was in Belarus teaching English.

I returned to the hotel.   It is a well-known fact among faculty, that given time and a little encouragement, powerpoint slides will self-organize into coherent lectures without intervention, even creating the missing transitions.   Counting on this phenomenon, similar to the process of the self-organizing molecules that created organic life, I went to bed, in anticipation of giving two brilliant lectures that I hadn’t yet seen.

Terry

A discussion about libraries in which a bystander takes an interest.

The purpose of this program is for the professional development of senior Belarus library specialists and to enhance their knowledge of national and international standards and practices. The presentations cover evaluation and measurement of the academic libraries performance. The overall goal is to support more effective management and use of information technology in Belarus libraries to better serve patrons and enhance their access to diverse and independent sources of information. Seven separate presentations on assessment, evaluation, and performance measures are planned for IT specialists, library school faculty and students, the staff for the National Library of Belarus, the Belarusian Library Association Council, and university librarians.

The US Speaker Program of the IIP organizes American experts and citizens to meet directly with foreign publics to promote understanding of U.S. culture, institutions and policies through lectures, workshops and seminars. http://www.state.gov/r/iip/programs/index.htm
I have been on this speaker program before, as have several GSLIS faculty, and I find it very constructive. In my view, it is not political.

Onsite, the visit is coordinated by Marina Shubina, Information Resource Center Director, and her staff; Violetta Vutsans, Information Resource Center Assistant and Nadya Skorobogataya. As the website for the IRC states, the Information Resource Center (IRC) is the research and reference service of the U.S. Embassy in Belarus. It aims to support all programs of the U.S. Mission in Belarus by providing current and authoritative information on the United States and the issues of importance to U.S.-Belarus relations. http://minsk.usembassy.gov/irc.html. The IRC provides information support for all programs of the US Mission in Belarus. It also provides reference and research service to the Belarusian community.

I arrived in Minsk from Frankfurt on Saturday, July 27, was picked up and checked into the Hotel Minsk on Nyezhavizhimosty Avenue, the main street in Minsk, which has been renamed several times recently. In the evening, I am briefed by Piotr Lapo, which was extremely useful. I started re-doing my powerpoint.

Terry Plum