The Law on the National Archive Fund (No.694-IQ of June 22, 1999) regulates the formation, protection, use, and operation of the National Archive Fund in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Today, the archive system of the Republic includes six state archives of national importance (the State Archive, the State Historical Archive, the State Archive of Literature and Art, the Archive of State Scientific and Technical Documents, the State Cinema-Photo Documents Archives, and the State Sound Record Archive), 15 branches of the State Archive, 50 districts and City Archives, as well as the State Archive of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (with seven districts and city archives), subordinated to the National Archives Department of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
The National Archive Fund provides public services on the inclusion and preservation of documents in the National Archive Fund, issuance of archival references or extracts from archival documents to citizens, issuance of copies of archival documents or extracts from archival documents to administrations, organisations and enterprises, and issuance of permission to use archival documents for scientific research and other purposes. Electronic Services are provided through the Electronic Services Portal, Electronic Archive System, Electronic Archive Information System, and Electronic Reporting System.
The State Program on the Development of Archival Work in the Republic of Azerbaijan for 2020-2025 (No.1815 of February 12, 2020) aimed to ensure reliable protection and widespread use of archival documents, to modernise archival service organisations, and to implement modern information and communication technologies, among other objectives.
The country’s public library system primarily consists of a vast network of public libraries managed by the Ministry of Culture. In addition, the State Oil Company (1), the Confederation of Trade Unions (3), and other organisations (29) also own some of the libraries.
The Azerbaijan National Library, the Republican Youth Library, named after J.Jabbarli, the Republican Children’s Library, named after F.Kocharli, and the Republican Library for the Visually Impaired, as well as City (district) Centralized Library Systems (CLS), operate under the Ministry of Culture.
The 75 City (district) Centralized Library Systems of the Ministry of Culture, comprising 7,304 employees, consist of 2,526 libraries, including 75 central libraries, 211 city library branches, 141 settlement library branches, and 2,099 village library branches, with a total library fund of 19,569,270 copies. Currently, 2,081,403 readers use the book collection of the CLS.
KOHA, an open-source integrated library system used worldwide in more than 70 countries by public, school, and special libraries, as well as in some extensive academic libraries, has been implemented to digitise library and bibliographic processes in the country. The bibliographic information of more than 850,000 books has been entered into the system, which is expected to be made available to the public soon.
A book collection campaign, “Go to Karabakh with a Book”, is being held for libraries whose activities will be restored in liberated territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan at the joint initiative of the Ministry of Culture and the Azerbaijan National Library. There are currently 130,446 copies of books in the project fund collected at the National Library.
The project “Return of our National Moral Values to the Motherland”, implemented by the National Library with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and coordination of the Ministry of Culture, implemented to bring electronic versions of manuscripts of Azerbaijani literature classics stored in world libraries and museums to Azerbaijan, create a single electronic database, print one copy of each of them for including in the Rare Books Fund of the National Library. Between 2023 and 2024, copies of more than 270 manuscripts from 23 countries were brought to Azerbaijan as part of the project.
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