kristina rallmann
DESCRIPTION
Estonian Defence Forces Libraries Twin Cities Conference: Innovation into Practise- New Service Concepts, Helsinki and Turku, Finland, 13-16 May 2009TRANSCRIPT
Estonian Defence Forces
Libraries
Kristina RallmannHeadquarters of Estonian Defence Forces
Our history can be divided into two phases:
First period in 1918-1940 Second started in 1991
The first military libray in the territory of Estonia was established in 1847 – The Marine Officer´s library
Libraries were founded together with the defence forces
Firstly mentioned in the newspaper “Sotsiaaldemokraat” in 1917
Officers called the nation to give books to the soldiers as gifts
The First Republic of Estonia
No finances for new literature No directions No specialised librarians Classification of books and circulation
system did not exist
The First Republic of Estonia
By 1926 there were 20 libraries
Special course for librarians was held in 1926
In 1927 appeared in print a book “A handbook for the organisation of the defence force libraries”
The First Republic of Estonia
Specific two-steps classification
In the General Staff library were constructed preferred-lists of military books
The directions how to bind and lend books were given out
The First Republic of Estonia
The last message from the military library have appeared in 1939
In 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Estonia
The defence forces were liquidated
Our libaries stopped existing
The First Republic of Estonia
In 1991 Estonia started to rebuild our national defence
Military libraries started from zero
Most of the units were formed in 1992 and 1993
Libraries were established by the staff of the units
The new beginning
Estonians from outside the country collected books through donations
An article about poor conditions of libraries appeared in print in aprill 2000
Officers had been turned to the public for donations
The new beginning
It was advertised a campaign “Give a book for soldier”
40 000 books were gathered
We got only fiction, not military literature
The new beginning
Libraries of units worked individually
Problems and concerns were identical
An idea of formulating a one central defence force libary turned up
The new beginning
Headquarters library was opened in 4. of May 2004
Library started to serve Headquarters of Defence Forces and Headquarters of Naval Force, Air Force and Land Force
The new beginning
Preliminary plan was to start with 3 different fields of operation:
1. Creating the set of defence force libraries2. To be ready for developing into a central
library of the defence forces3. Start with Estonian military bibliographic
database
The new beginning
We started up by uniting the 2 libary databases into one
After that we started to connect all the libaries step-by-step
We organised a training to librarians how to use electronic catalog and how organise electronic circulation
Creating the set of libraries:
14 libraries joined with us
Creating the set of libraries:
Headquarters and Estonian Defence College libraries are special libraries in militay area
Libraries in Units : A place for soldier to spend his free time A place to borrow books to read They almost don´t have special military
literature, except manuals and textbooks
Mission of libaries
I compared books in foreign languages in my libary with other bigger scientific libraries funds
75 % of the books we have in our library are uniq in Estonia
A little statistical reseach in 2007
http://www.biblioserver.com/kaitse/
Started to compose in 2007 in collaboration with Baltic Defence College library
Estonian Military Bibliographic Database
The aim of the database is to register all the books, newspapers and magazines in Estonian language about military matters
Includes collection of articles about Estonian Defence Forces and Estonian military history
Estonian Military Bibliographic Database
Includes rare Estonian militay books in pdf-format (in collaboration with National Library EOD-project)
Reader can find a list of undergraduate papers, master´s and doctorate thesis and scientific publication issued bu employees of defence forces (bibliographic records only)
Estonian Military Bibliographic Database
Our libraries have become quite important units in the structure of Estonian Defence Forces
In institutions libary is very good instrument to motivate employees
We hope that leaders of Estonian Defence Forces will continue to support the development and existence of military libraries
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!