Mark Winek, Georgetown University

“BibSlavKon Database” – Complemented by New Data

The Slavonic Library in Prague (a section of the National Library of the Czech Republic) has completed the preparation of the bibliography of published papers that were presented at the XV International Congress of Slavists in Minsk, Belarus in 2013. Approximately 506 published papers were sent to the Osteuropa-Abteilung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and entered in the database – “Bibliography of International Congresses of Slavists (BibSlavKon).” The BibSlavKon Database is part of the “Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Slavistik” (Virtual Library of Slavic Studies) portal, which is run and developed by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library). The database includes bibliographies of all fifteen organized international conferences and contains 7,767 records. The current bibliography has been prepared on the occasion of the XVI International Congress of Slavists, which is taking place in Belgrade, Serbia on August 20-27, 2018. The BibSlavKon Database can be accessed at slavistik-portal.de/en/datenpool/bibslavkon-db.

(Lukáš Babka, National Library of the Czech Republic)

XVI International Congress of Slavists

The XVI International Congress of Slavists will be held from August 20-27, 2018 in Belgrade, Serbia at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. The program is divided into four sections: Language; Literature, culture, folklore; Issues in Slavic studies; and Special Congress topics. The Special Congress topics will explore the 200th anniversary of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić’s Српски рјечник and the place of its author in Slavic studies, Aleksandr Belić in the history of Slavic studies, and 1918 and the development of Slavonic languages and literature. The proceedings will also feature a meeting of the Congress’ Commission for Computer Processing of Manuscript and Early Printed Books. More information is available in English from the American Committee of Slavists at slavic.fas.harvard.edu/pages/american-committee-slavists. The full website for the XVI International Congress of Slavists is available in Serbian at mks2018.fil.bg.ac.rs/.

25th Lviv International Book Forum

The 25th Lviv International Book Forum (Lviv Book Forum) is scheduled for September 19-23, 2018 in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 1994, the Lviv Book Forum has served as the main book-related event in Ukraine and one of the largest in Eastern Europe, with the aim of developing Ukrainian book publishing and increasing the cultural and educational level of Ukrainians. The theme of the 2018 Lviv Book Forum is the “Market of Freedom,” and how each individual “sells” their own ideas about freedom under the pressure of personal circumstances. The Forum is run by the not-for-profit group Publishers Forum. Under the umbrella of the Lviv Book Forum, the Ukrainian Library Association will host the Lviv Library Forum from September 18-22, 2018. Simultaneously, the 13th Lviv International Literature Festival will welcome 25,000 visitors from 25 countries from September 20-23, 2018. More information about the Book Forum and related events is available at bookforum.ua/forum-vydavtsiv/.

COSEELIS Conference 2018

The Council for Slavonic and East European Library and Information Services (COSEELIS) will host its annual conference from July 5-6, 2018 at Fitzwilliam College, the University of Cambridge. The theme of the 2018 Conference is “1918-2018: New Europe, New Nations in Library and Archive Collections.” A draft program for the 2018 COSEELIS Conference, as well as materials from past conferences, is available at coseelis.wordpress.com/.

47th International ABDOS Conference

The Working Group of Libraries and Documentation Units for Research on East, East Central, and South Eastern Europe (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Bibliotheken und Dokumentationsstellen der Ost-, Ostmittel- und Südosteuropaforschung, or ABDOS), hosted its annual conference from May 7-9, 2018. Held in Leipzig, the Conference was jointly organized with the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, Leipzig University Library, and the Southeast Europe Association (Munich). The theme of the conference was “Freely available, networked but nevertheless hard to find: Information retrieval and academic communication on East, East Central and South Eastern Europe.”

The Conference featured papers and presentations on topics related to:

• Lobbying for libraries and information units
• Forms of intensified cooperation between libraries and academia
• Research data management in libraries
• Map collections with a focus on East, East Central and South Eastern Europe
• Leipzig as a center of printing and a junction between East and West
• ·Networking: locally – nationally – internationally

Information about the 47th International ABDOS Conference, as well as programs from previous ABDOS conferences, is available at www.abdos.de/tagungen.

Vampires at History Day 2017

The University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies (UCL SSEES) Library contributed some of its unique collections to History Day 2017, an annual one-day event bringing researchers together with information professionals from libraries, archives, and research organizations in the United Kingdom. Coinciding with Halloween (October 31), the UCL SSEES Library contribution to History Day highlighted its strong vampire and vampiric studies holdings. Aside from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Library pointed researchers to:

• Vlad the Impaler: In Search of the Real Dracula by M.J. Trow;
• The Origins of Dracula: The Background to Bram Stoker’s Gothic Masterpiece, edited by Clive Leatherdale;
• The Bloody Countess, by Valentine Penrose, and;
• Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania, by Raymond T. McNally.

The History Day exhibition also provided an opportunity to highlight other holdings in Eastern European folklore and mythology. COSEELIS blog: coseelis.wordpress.com/2017/08/07/ucl-ssees-library-will-participate-in-history-day-at-senate-house-in-october-2017/