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The subject of this article is to analyze the national bibliography as a means for promoting the documentary heritage and providing access to it. It discusses various forms of the national bibliography as well as their potential for preserving the memory and ensuring access to documentary resources and their promotion. The article serves the purpose, by drawing on the analysis of foreign publications, of substantiating the idea that the national bibliography as a structured registry of the national publishing output may serve as a reliable means for promoting the documentary heritage. The article elaborates on the evolution of the notion and coverage of the national bibliography as well as its presentation to the public. The national bibliography was defined in the 60ies of the 20th century by joint efforts of UNESCO and IFLA. This definition underlined that the national bibliography must cover the nation's entire published output. The notion of the national bibliography underwent some evolution, and in the 21st century the focus shifted towards registering electronic publishing resources alongside with solving the issues of presenting the national bibliography to the public. Previously, the presence of a bibliographic record in the national bibliography signified that the resource was available within the legal deposit collection of the library, whereas at present the issue of having to register national information resources which do not belong to this collection is gaining persistence. Another significant issue in making the national bibliography a comprehensive registry of the nation's publishing output is the relation between the national bibliography and legal deposit. Successful and sustainable development of the national bibliography requires cooperative effort in creating and updating publication and factual data and efficient communication with publishers and other suppliers of public information within the chain of legal deposit. This interaction substantiates the existence of the national bibliography as the all-reflecting mirror creating opportunities to cognize the national documentary cultural heritage and ensuring its promotion and access, The register of bibliographic and authority data of published documents helps preserve the cultural and historical memory; ensures dissemination of knowledge about historical and cultural events and their interpretation; and gives a panorama of the cultural history, the heritage of the traditional culture, prominent fellow-countrymen and national uniqueness. The analysis of websites of national libraries of various countries which are legal deposit receivers shows that some of them remind the publishers of their obligation to submit legal deposit copies in a laconic manner and some of them provide more information, e.g. types and quantity of legal deposit copies and terms of submission as well as give references to appropriate legal acts. Some of these institutions highlight the significance of legal deposit as a means of preserving cultural heritage and ensuring access to it for the general public and researchers. However, there is no clear message addressed to the integral and primary chain of the legal deposit system, the publishers, about their responsibility about the comprehensiveness of legal deposit and the publishers' benefits from contributing to the preservation and access of the national cultural heritage. The article analyzes the transformation of the national bibliography from a printed list to a presentation of linked data. Digital and information technologies applied in publication processes and creation of new forms of disseminating data of national bibliographies contribute to promoting the national history and cultural memory. Broad access to national bibliographic data allows the general public creating new services and products. The precise definition of purposes of the national bibliography and its users could facilitate the shaping of the appropriate model of the national bibliography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A book collection in corpore is usually used to describe a historically formed, indivisible collection of books having a historic, scientific and cultural value. Specialized research on this topic in Lithuania has been scanty, if any, with the exception of research conducted on acquiring and storing book collections in libraries as well as similar topics. The article aims at investigating the theoretical aspects of using the term book collection and providing the analysis of existing practices and trends with regard to book collections both in Lithuanian and foreign libraries. To achieve this objective, the following methods of literary analysis and empirical research have been used: analysis of library websites, expert survey, interviews with the library staff taking care of book collections at their disposal. The objects of research are the book collections in corpore, acquired and stored in the National Library of Lithuania, libraries of state-level and county libraries. The libraries which decide to store and preserve book collections in corpore, undertake a museum function, that is, the inherent function pertinent to a memory institution. This function is not characteristic of public libraries. However, it is among the core functions of the libraries having the national and state status. Based on the criterion of the former owner, collections in corpore can be grouped as follows: personal libraries (the libraries of outstanding statesmen, public figures, science and culture makers) and book heritage of various institutions (institutional libraries). It turned out that currently 144 collections in corpore are being stored in the National Library of Lithuania, state-level and county libraries, with personal libraries identified as the prevailing group among them (137). The seven remaining collections in corpore are institutional libraries. The analysis of the information available in library websites on the collections in corpore revealed that the material presented is rather scarce and the websites do not contain comprehensive information about the scope of the respective collections. Thus, the user's access to information is rather restricted. Today, the acquisition of collections in corpore has been reduced in scope, reflecting the current situation in librarianship. The status of some of the libraries which have acquired a great many book collections in corpore (for example, Vilnius University Library) have to be reviewed. Having established whether we are dealing with a collection in corpore or whether it is merely a donated collection of books, we can integrate the books in question into the library holdings, marking book provenance indicators in a bibliographic description in the online catalogue. Due to their exclusivity, book collections in corpore are becoming book monuments. Such a status puts their custodians under an obligation to treat them as the sets of documents having special value, that is, as book monuments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preservation of national cultural heritage has been during the last years actively discussed both on institutional and state levels. In October 2003 the working group on digital preservation by theMinistry of Culture elaborated preservation guidelines Strategy of digital preservation of Estonian cultural heritage for years 2004–2007. The strategy is based on the principles of eEurope 2002Action Plan (2000) and Lund Principles (2001).The state strategy is aimed to achieve collaboration of different memory institutions in order to elaborate an unified view on cultural heritage and its digitisation as well as to preservation of digitally created cultural heritage. It is also important to guarantee preservation of cultural heritage and to make it accessible to the public use through the contemporary possibilities of informationand communication technologies. Digitisation and preservation of digitized heritage will be coordinated by the state. The main coordinators are the Ministry of Culture, The Ministry of Educationand Science, the State Chancellery and the National Archive.The methodology of decision making for digital preservation is based on the principles of the UNESCO programme Memory of the World. The choice of objects for digitisation is based on need and expediency that can be evaluated on the ground of acultural value of an object, conservation risks, physical condition of an object and necessity of use.In 2004–2005 metadata requirements for digital preservation were elaborated. The guidelines foresee that digitized objects will be described by four categories of metadata: administrative andtechnical metadata, metadata on access inhibitors and restrictions of use and descriptive metadata. Estonian documentary heritage is located today in different memory institutions: in state or public institutions like archives, libraries and museums, in private possession, in religious and scientific institutions and in possession of the third sector (different organisations). For reasons of the historical development considerable part of documentary heritage is also located outside Estonia (Sweden, USA, Canada, Australia, Russia etc).The projects of red books as well as different digitisation projects have been in practice for some years in all Estonian memory institutions. Libraries are pioneers in initiating collaborationprojects in digitisation. Due to the joint efforts of the National Library, the Archive Library of the Estonian Literature Museum and the Tallinn University Academic Library a big collection of old Estonian newspapers is available by internet. The project is titled DEA (Digitized Estonian Newspapers). The aim of the project Red Book of Estonian publications, 1535–1850 was to create a theoretical basis for elaborating criteria that would enable decision making and determination preservation priorities of the Estonian book heritage. At the moment there is not much collaboration between different types of memory institutions. The joint projects like DEA and Red Bookof Estonian Publications give hope that together difficult problems of preservation can be better solved and users will get better access to Estonian cultural heritage.