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REPUBLICAN SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL LIBRARY
The significant role in the information support of scientific-technical and innovative activity of enterprises and organizations in Belarus belongs to the Republican Scientific and Technical Library (RNTB) that possesses vast information resources, the net of regional branches and serves scientific and technical specialists in all regions. The information resources of RNTB constitute an indissoluble complex of scientific and technical documents intended to satisfy information needs of specialists in the scientific-technical sphere of the Republic at all the stages of innovative activity from the idea to the creation of new equipment, introduction of the newest technologies and realization of products. Collections of RNTB and 5 regional branches with the total volume equal to more than 33 million copies have been regularly compiled during almost three decades and include patent documents, normative-technical documents on standardization, industrial catalogues as well as native and foreign literature on technique, technologies, industrial economy and neighbouring branches. Alongside with printed publications these collections contain documents on microcarriers as well as electronic documents on optical disks – CD- and DVD-ROMs. The share of electronic information resources constitutes nearly a third of the RNTB collection and has already exceeded the number of printed publications. The essential role in the short-time information and bibliographic support of specialists is played by databases containing information on various aspects of science and technology. RNTB provides more than 80 databases which allow to carry out quick searches and to get necessary information. Among them there are more than 30 full-text ones. RNTB has generated its own problem-oriented databases – “Production Economy”, “Innovative Activity”, “Power Saving”, “Ecologically Clean and Safe Technologies in Industry”, “Processing and Use of Industrial Waste and Domestic Garbage”, “History of Inventiveness Development in Belarus” ”Inventions Implemented in the Republic of Belarus” and others – more than 25 databases with about 200 thousand total of records. The free access to the RNTB resources is realized in specialized reading-rooms provided with modern furniture and computer equipment (more than 50 workstations for users) as well as in the Information Center of RNTB, in two Internet-centers (in Minsk and Brest) and by means of the Information and Reference Service. The access to scientific and educational resources of Internet also is provided by the branches in Gomel and Mogilev. RNTB has its Internet page (http://www.rlst.org.by) that is constantly replenished and actualized. In accordance with the results of the Belarusian Internet-Prize contest at the 11th International Specialized Exhibition TIBO-2004, the RNTB Web-site was rewarded with a diploma(the second place) in the nomination “Electronic Libraries and Catalogues”. The electronic catalogue of RNTB available in Internet at the address http://rntbcat.org.by contains about 100 thousand records and is replenished in the short-time regime. On requests of enterprises and organizations the Library renders about 50 various services in searching, selection and delivery of information in the form convenient for users including an electronic form through the service of electronic delivery of documents (EDD) at the address http://rlst.org.by/index.php. The RNTB collection of patent documents amounts to 95 % from the total volume of the Library collection, is compiled according to the universal themes and is unique because it is not duplicated by any other library of the country. In accordance with the terms of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property a party to which the Republic of Belarus became in 1993 it is just RNTB that fulfills the functions of the only accessible to everybody state depository of patent documents. In the collection there is presented patent documentation of 45 countries and 4 international organizations and exists the possibility of retrospective search – for more than 50 years. The databases of patent documentation on CD- and DVD-ROMs amount to about 9 thousand disks. Among them there are 21 full-text databases with nearly 10 million documents. The Library provides access to the collections of patent documents in its two reading-rooms and in all regional branches and renders the following services:
Annually nearly 2 thousand enterprises and institutions and not less than 30 thousand individual users resort to the resources and services of RNTB in Minsk and regional cities. The number of visits exceeds 200 thousand and 3 million copies of documents are given out. In the remote mode there are registered more than 30 thousand users and 75 thousand visits to the Library site. RNTB has the following coordinates: address: 7, Masherov Ave., Minsk, the Republic of Belarus |