Director of the National and University Library of BiH at the International Conference and Book Fair in Azerbaijan

At the invitation of the Director of the National Library of Azerbaijan, Prof. Karim Tahirov, Director of the National and University Library of BiH, Dr. Ismet Ovčina, visited Baku, 27-30 September 2019. On that occasion, he attended an international scientific conference “Libraries as mobile Information Centers” and the 6th International Book Fair in Baku.
The event was attended by the state government of Azerbaijan representatives, diplomatic missions accredited in the country representatives, public figures, representatives from the field of science, culture and arts.
The International Science Conference was opened by the Republic of Azerbaijan Minister of Culture, Abulfas Garayev, who emphasized the importance of the conference’s topic, recognizing the 21st century as the century of information and communication technology (ICT), or the century of revolution due to the rapid changes in technology brining transformation in every field of life, and these changes increasingly affect the routine tasks of libraries and librarians.
During the conference, Dr. Ismet Ovčina presented a paper on “Implementation of mobile information services through COBISS.BH”, which presented the services and applications of the Virtual Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the COBISS (Cooperative Online Bibliographic System and Services) system, an organizational model that links libraries to national library-information system with mutual cataloging, a shared bibliographic-catalog database of COBIB and local databases of participating libraries.
During his stay, Dr. Ismet Ovčina met with the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Abulfas Garayev and the Director of the National Library, Prof. Karim Tahir, with whom he discussed future cooperation and possible realization of certain projects in the field of librarianship, culture and cultural heritage. Otherwise, the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the National Library of Azerbaijan have a long-standing cooperation agreement that maintains continuous library cooperation. Also, Dr. Ovčina met and spoke with the directors and deputy directors of the national libraries present at this Conference, Russia, Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and a number of representatives of libraries from Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, etc.
The opening of the 6th International Book Fair in Baku was dedicated to the marking of 650th Anniversary of Azerbaijani poet Imadaddin Nasimi and held on 27 September.
The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina presented itself at the 6th International Book Fair in Baku on a stand, which was visited by Vice President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Leyla Aliyeva, daughter of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyeva and Minister Abulfas Garayev with associates.