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3 H.Haciyev St., Baku 370001 Azerbaijan |
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Muzhgan Nazarova. Libraries in Azerbaijan: Reaching Forward.Libraries: Global Reach – Local Touch/ Edited By
Kathleen de la Pena McCook, Barbara J.Ford and Kate Lippincott. -Chicago and London: American Library Association, 1998. Pp. 82-89. Global
Reach—Local Touch. It means something very special to me. I perfectly understand what global librarianship can give to my country, Azerbaijan, because actually I myself have experienced the "magic touch" which
has allowed me to reach globally to a fascinating world of librarianship. The U.S. librarians (Professor Bob Hayes and Diane Childs from the University of California at Los Angeles and Stephen Mallinger from the U.S.
Information Agency), whom I met in my country while working for the U.S. Information Service Library introduced me to U.S. librarianship and helped me to understand the main ideas of it and to realize how far behind
Azerbaijan librarianship is compared to the other developing countries. The libraries in Azerbaijan could not meet the lowest requirements of the information society. It is important to find ways to move the libraries
of Azerbaijan forward. A main purpose of this chapter is to speak about global librarianship in relation to my country. I have decided to divide my article into three time lines: the past of the libraries
of Azerbaijan, the present and the future. In the latter section, I will speak about my vision on how global librarianship can help libraries in Azerbaijan. I will also include some current information about Azerbaijan
and the global changes taking place there because these changes provide a good background for starting to implement changes in Azerbaijani librarianship. Information about the Country Azerbaijan is a country lying at the crossroads between Europe,
Asia, and the Middle East. It borders Russia and Georgia to the north, Iran and Turkey to the south, Armenia to the west, and the Caspian Sea to the east. The original Republic of Azerbaijan was formed in 1918 in the
wake of World War I and was the first nation in the Caucasus to establish an independent, secular, and democratic government. Not long after, the newly formed state of Azerbaijan became a part of the Soviet Union and
continued until December 3,1991, when a new independent Republic of Azerbaijan was formed after more than seventy years of Soviet rule. The 7.9 million people of Azerbaijan live on 86,600 square kilometers, while 20
percent of the territory is occupied by Armenians as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Armenians and Azerbaijanis went to war in the late 1980s over Nagorno Karabakh—a part of Azerbaijani territory inside
Azerbaijan's borders mainly populated by Armenians. More than thirty-five thousand people were killed and one million Azerbaijani refugees were created in the process of war. Both sides have generally observed a
Russian-mediated cease-fire in place since May 1994, and support the Organization for Cooperation and Security (OCSE) - mediated peace process, now entering its fifth year. The capital of Azerbaijan
is Baku; other principal cities are Gyandzha, Sumgayut and Mingyazevir. The natural resources of the country are petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, nonferrous metals and aluminum. The tremendous energy resources of
Azerbaijan serve as a long-term alternative for the Western countries to lessen dependence on the vulnerable supplies of Persian Gulf oil. With potential reserves of two hundred billion barrels of oil, the Caspian
region will become the most important new player in world oil markets over the next decade. The first oil contract was signed between the Azerbaijan State Oil Company and the Azerbaijan International
Operating Company (AIOC), a consortium of twelve Western corporations led by Amoco, Unocal, and Exxon of the U.S., British Petroleum, and Norway's Statoil, with British Petroleum and Amoco serving as project operators,
in September 1994. This eight billion dollar investment was the first and the largest among the nine other contracts, each worth between one and several billion dollars, signed by Azerbaijan with international oil
companies during 1994-1997. The United States, seeking an alternative to energy sources from the Middle East, has increased diplomatic efforts to expand U.S. interests in the region. In the summer of 1997,
Washington hosted Azerbaijan's President Aliyev. The U.S. Energy Secretary Federico Pena, who visited Azerbaijan in November 1997 to participate in a ceremony celebrating the first flow of oil from the Caspian reserves
to international markets on November 12, said in his speech: "The celebration of early oil is an important milestone and a symbol for the future. The first flow of Azerbaijani oil will be remembered as a great
tuning point for the region and a remarkable turning point in our history."1 Past History of the Libraries in Azerbaijan Library History in Azerbaijan The earliest library in Azerbaijan
appeared in the thirteenth century and belonged to the Maruha Observatory. This observatory was created in the second half of the thirteenth century in the city of Meraga of Eastern Azerbaijan in Iran. The library of
more than 400,000 volumes was founded by Nasraddin Tusi — a great scientist, thinker and statesman of that period. In the sixteenth century the biggest library of that time existed at the palace of the Shah Ismail
Khatai — a founder of the Safavid dynasty and a famous poet. In the nineteenth century most libraries were private collections. The biggest ones were the personal libraries of Abaskuli bek Bakikhanov and Mirza Fatali
Akhundov. Bakikhanov was a prominent Azerbaijani scientist and writer. He is the author of number of works on history, education, philosophy, astronomy and geography. Akhundov was a great Azerbaijani playwright,
educator and philosopher. He is considered a founder of Azerbaijani dramatic art and contributed to the development of literary and social thought of the whole Middle East. The first public library was opened in
Azerbaijan in 1894. The most ancient manuscripts of the Azerbaijani language go back to the fourteenth (Divans of Gazi Burkhanaddin and Nasimi) and fifteenth centuries (manuscript of the epic
Dede Gorgut).
The epic itself was written in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries. All the manuscripts in the Azerbaijani language created before the middle of the nineteenth century are kept in the Manuscripts Institute of Azerbaijan.
2 Azerbaijani books published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries form part of the Turkic collections of many libraries of the former Soviet Union. The Azerbaijani collection
(1845-1931), part of a Turkic collection of the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of the Asian Nations by number of volumes, occupies the second place among all their collections. These materials mainly cover a
period before the 1917 Revolution and are marked by a prevalence of literature on history, art, and folklore. Good examples from this collection include the early works by M. Akhundov
(Hikayat Mulla Ibrahim Xalil Kimiyakira, Tiflis, 1859), by N. Narimanov (Shakh- Nadir, Baku, 1899 and Shamdan bek, Baku, 1913), by Fizuli (Leyla and Medznun, Baku, 1915), by Molla Nasreddin
(Post Box, Tiflis, 1912). Early translations of Russian and foreign literature into Azerbaijani are also represented in the collection; for example Tolstoy's What Men Line By and A Captive in the Caucasus
(Baku, 1912), Karamzin's Poor Lisa (Baku, 1912), Gorky's The Children of the Sun, Shakespeare's Othello
(Baku, 1893) and also many textbooks and recreational reading. Copies of the following journals, published before the Revolution, are also pan of a collection: Molla Nasreddin (Tiflis, 1906-1930), Sedai Kafkaz
(Baku, 1915-1916), Mertep (Baku, 1911-1916).3
The Library System in the Former Soviet Union and Azerbaijan Even though the
libraries all over the world are quite similar and fulfill many of the same basic functions, they differ in that they are integral parts of different societies. Thus, they may take on some completely different functions
and tasks in a particular society serving different needs. One factor that affected Azerbaijani libraries is the fact that Azerbaijan has been a part of the Soviet Union for more than seventy years and that libraries in
Azerbaijan were a part of a single network belonging to the U.S.S.R. Horecky described this aspect in 1959, "A pattern sui generis
in the U.S.S.R. is the integration into 'networks' of large numbers of libraries performing identical or analogous tasks or servicing certain strata of the population. Administratively, at the apex of these networks are central governmental or quasi-governmental agencies which are responsible for ministering, staffing, financing their library networks in keeping with current legal regulations and the provisions of the plan."
4 The functions fulfilled by the libraries in the Soviet Union were described in 1971 as follows: 1. state book store serving the whole Republic;
Although continuing to be forums for information and ideas, the libraries in the former Soviet Union including Azerbaijan do not exemplify the policies stated in the ALA Library Bill of Rights. A major difference is
that citizens do not have easy access to information. Libraries typically have closed stacks and the collections themselves are not selected. The libraries also are rarely automated and make little use of technologies,
which would connect them to other libraries around the world. Lack of the necessary technology, computers, reliable telephone systems, effective systems of international communication, prevent the Azerbaijani librarians
from accessing the global information network. The Azerbaijani library system consists of three sectors: public libraries; academic and school libraries; special and technical-scientific libraries.
By the beginning of 1990 there were 10,000 libraries in Azerbaijan having a total number of 140 million volumes.6 Libraries in Azerbaijan are mainly funded by government and administered by different
government departments. Today, when the country is in a transformation period to a market economy and the inflation rate is relatively high, the government has been unable to provide enough funds for libraries and
librarians.7 Four thousand public libraries are administered by the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Education administers another 4,000 academic and school libraries. Two thousand
special, scientific and technical libraries are administered by different Ministries as well as by the local authorities and public organizations.
The total number of librarians in Azerbaijan is around 30,000.8
Unlike the Baltic States and Russia, where independent library associations began to appear in 1988 and have become the driving force for democratic change in the library world, a professional association of librarians has not yet been created in Azerbaijan.
9 Several efforts have been made so far (in 1994 and 1997), but all of them were unsuccessful. As a result of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with Armenians, almost two thousand libraries with millions
of volumes in their collections located in Nagorno Karabakh and near the Azerbaijani-Armenian border were destroyed and burned by Armenians. The collections contained rare books as well as material on Azerbaijani
history, literature and culture. That was a big cultural loss for Azerbaijan. Library Education in Azerbaijan A library school for Azerbaijan was first opened in 1947 as a part of the Philological Department of Baku State University. In 1962 the library school became an independent school within the University. The first dean of the school was Professor Halafov. The faculty includes thirty full, associate and assistant professors. Most education at a library school is at an undergraduate level. During the fifty years of its existence 5,000 students have received a diploma from the school. In 1997, 669 students were studying at the school. For the last twenty years eight graduate students got their Kandidat Nauk diplomas. The present dean of the school. Dr. Ismaylov, and a deputy-dean, Dr. Bakhshaliyev, are developing and implementing the U.S. curriculum for the master's degree at the school using the experience of the leading library schools in the United States.10 Short Information about the National and Scientific-Technical Libraries of Azerbaijan as a Sample The libraries listed in Figure 1 are considered the main libraries out of 10,000 functioning all over the Republic. It
is not possible to give a description of each of the mentioned libraries within the limits of this chapter. Information about two of them is given below to give the readers an idea about the libraries in Azerbaijan.
The National Library of Azerbaijan Named after Mirza Fatali Akhundov National Library of Azerbaijan (n.a.) M. F. Akhundov Figure 1: Main Libraries in Azerbaijan One of the leading departments of the Library is the Department of Foreign Literature having around 100,000 books and 186 journal titles in its collection. The
Department had library agreements with twenty-three countries, including the United States, England, Japan and Syria, which allowed the library to receive publications from foreign countries in exchange for Azerbaijani
publications. Because of the economic situation in Azerbaijan for the past ten years, the library staff have lost a lot of their contacts with libraries abroad. The Department also has a collection of materials
published abroad about Azerbaijan and the works of Azerbaijani authors published in foreign countries. A very important initiative on publicizing Azerbaijan in foreign countries is being conducted by the Department
which sends leading journals published in Azerbaijan to different countries of the world on a regular basis. The administration of the National Library of Azerbaijan is concerned about the Azerbaijani books
kept in different libraries of the former Soviet Union and some foreign countries, which have not been returned to Azerbaijan. Lack of funds is cited as a reason. The Scientific-Technical Library of Azerbaijan The Scientific-Technical Library was founded in
1930 as a library for the State Oil Company. After the formation of the Ministry for the Oil Industry in Azerbaijan this library provided a service to that Ministry. In 1957 it was transformed into the central
scientific-technical library covering the needs of all the industries. The patents collection of the Republic and the collection of standards and industrial catalogs were organized as a part of the library. The
collection consists of about seventeen million volumes. The library serves as a depository for technical literature. An exchange collection includes books donated to and from other libraries. The Republican
Scientific Technical Library served as a coordinating center for subscriptions to foreign literature for all the libraries of Azerbaijan through the All-Union Organization Mezdunarodnaya Kniga
(International Book) and Soyuzpezat
(Union Press) before a breakdown of the Soviet Union. The library used to receive the literature from fifteen countries of the world. Publicizing of the foreign literature was arranged by organizing exhibits, information days, and open houses. But, again, because of financial problems, everything has stopped now. A Department of Scientific-Technical research was organized in the library in 1976, which conducted the first applied studies in the field of automating library processes.
The Future of the Libraries in Azerbaijan I am very
optimistic about the future of libraries in my country. Global changes are taking place in Azerbaijan and major investments in Azerbaijan's economy are being made by Western businesses. Investments in education and
culture have not kept up although everybody agrees that the library system in Azerbaijan needs to be changed. To change the system a lot of librarians must be trained and given an opportunity to see what these changes
should look like and learn how necessary they are. A good example is computer experience, using a PC with Data Trek library automation system software donated to the Department of Foreign Literature of the National
Library of Azerbaijan in 1994. The librarians had never used Data Trek and did not have any idea about the software. Instead, a computer was used just for word-processing. To be able to make global
changes the Azerbaijani librarians should be able, if not to see, at least to learn about achievements in librarianship in different countries of the world. The USIA Information Resource Center in Baku, where I have
worked, is a sort of demonstration laboratory of the newest technologies in the libraries. It is the place where not only the librarians of the country but also people of different backgrounds, both students and
professors, have a chance to see CD-ROMs, library automation systems, multimedia, and other information technology for the first time. Three U.S. librarians can be considered the first initiators in the
history of the development of relations between the Azerbaijan and U.S. librarians. The USIA Regional Library Officer, Stephen Mallinger, is very enthusiastic about conducting workshops and presentations for different
groups of the USIA target audience in Azerbaijan including librarians. Mallinger also visited the library school several times, where he gave short talks to the students and the faculty. Professor Bob Hayes and Diane
Childs from UCLA visited Azerbaijan as a part of UCLA-Khazar University Project. They provided support for the creation of a library and computer system in Khazar University. Diane Childs applied for a Fulbright grant
support the development of curriculum and preparation for opening a School of Information and Library Science in Khazar University. If the grant is awarded, then Azerbaijan will be able to have a library school on the
U.S. model. This means that, in addition to the task of retraining the older generation of traditional librarians, my country would be able to educate a new generation of young librarians. Fulbright
and other grants in the field of librarianship are extremely important for Azerbaijan now. 0. V. Shiykova writes, "The charitable foundations and organizations, the activities of which are aimed at the development
of contacts between the specialists of the CIS countries and the U.S., and stimulation of the search of original scientific decisions contribute to the development of library science and practice. The Fulbright
Scholarship, Junior Faculty Development Program, and the Freedom Support Act have been carried out in the CIS countries since 1994."11
The author also mentions that two kinds of Fulbright grants are available for CIS librarians: Exchange for Senior Scholars and the Program for Junior Faculty. As a recipient of a Freedom Support Act
Fellowship (a grant for graduate study in libra
Figure 2: Soros Foundation Matching Grants for Azerbaijani Libraries IREX not only brings the librarians from the CIS countries for study and training in the United States, but also offers special projects
to support librarians, archivists, and information specialists pursuing projects relating to Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The objective of these grants is to increase access and improve working conditions for
American scholars using libraries, archives, and other resources. Another program, suggested by IREX and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Information Agency (USIA),
launched the Internet Access and Training Program (IATP) in December 1995. This program promotes academic and professional exchange in the information age by providing sustainable access to and training in e-mail,
Internet, and the World Wide Web for alumni of USIA and U.S. government-sponsored programs and their colleagues in the New Independent States. These activities were planned to start in Azerbaijan in 1997.
Even though there is a long way to go for Azerbaijani libraries to reach the global information highway, there are many exciting changes taking place currently. This is only the beginning. Oil agreements are flourishing
and investments are flowing to Azerbaijan. Even though it would be a little more difficult to attract investments in library and information services, some evident changes are taking place. When I left
Azerbaijan in July 1997, full access to the Internet was not available. The Intrans company was able only to provide e-mail and Internet newsgroup access. Today, there are at least seven companies, local and
international, which offer full Internet access but their high prices effectively limit the Internet to a narrow range of business users. The only station providing free access to the World Wide Web is in
the Information Resource Center of the USIS in Baku. A new local Dynamic Data company provides Internet access to medical databases and telemedicine. This is only one computer station, which has started to provide the
information for the medical scholars and practitioners and to create the conditions for carrying out the worldwide telemedicine consultations since June 1997 on a commercial basis. Figure 2 shows some
projects enabled through the Soros Foundation Regional Library Program Board Matching Funds Award to Azerbaijani Libraries. I would like to invite U.S. librarians to help Azerbaijani libraries. You will not learn
anything new in terms of technology, but you will get the experience of learning about one of the ancient cultures in the world and you will get a chance to get to know the Azerbaijani people. Your
colleagues in Azerbaijan need your advice and support. The first steps towards creating the bridge between the information professionals of the two countries have already been created. I would like to serve as a main
foundation stone in its future development. Notes
1. David Filipov, "In Azerbaijan, at First Gush: Ex-Soviet Republic Taps Promise of Caspian Oil," Boston Globe, 13 November 1997. 2.
Azerbaydzhanskaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya (Azerbaijani Soviet Encyclopedia) v. 2 (Baku: Azerneshr, 1981). 3. L.
4. Paul L. Horecky, Libraries and Bibliographic Centers in the Soviet Union, Slavic and East European Series, v. 16 (Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1959), 15. 5. Simon Francis, ed..
Libraries in the USSR (Hamden: Linnet Books and Clive Bingley Ltd., 1971), 16. 6. Zokhrab Bahshaliyev, "Yokhsa kitab sakhlanan yer?" ("Library or a book storage?"), Khalg Gazeti,
April 1993. 7. Khalil Ismaylov, "Respublikada kitabkhana ishi yenilezekmi," ("Will Librarianship in the Republic Be Updated?") Khayat, 21 December 1991.
8. Ibid. 9. Dennis Kimmage, ed., Russian Libraries in Transition: An Anthology of G/asnost Literature (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992), 149. 10. Azerbaycan Respublikasu Tesil Nazilliyu,
M.E. Rasulzadc adyna Baku Dovlet Universiteti. Kitabkhanacilig Fakultesi (The Ministry of Education of the Azerbaijan Republic Baku State University, n.a. M. E. Rasulzade. Library School). Book/et (Baku,
1994). 11.
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