February 23, 1996

Contact: Helen Dalrymple (202) 707-1940

---

Library of Congress to Welcome 1996 Soros Fellows

The Library of Congress and the Regional Library Program of the Open Society Institute (a Budapest-based Soros Foundation) are launching a three-month internship program to benefit librarians and information specialists from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The Soros Foundations-Library of Congress Librarian Intern Program supersedes the Visiting Fellows Program, which ended in 1995 after three years. The new program shares its predecessor's goal of enabling participants to promote open information access as an essential feature of democratization in their home countries. However, the new program is designed specifically to stress Internet training and access.

The 1996 program will begin March 1 with the arrival of 11 interns. The first month will be devoted to general library orientation, Internet training and a management training workshop at the Library of Congress. This will be followed by a week of field experience at the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs, University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In April the interns will return to Washington and embark on individualized eight-week programs at 10 local institutions. The institutions have agreed to provide training, work experience and Internet access. These cooperative partnerships will allow the participants to observe first-hand how libraries in a democratic society serve their constituencies.

The group comprises two residents of Romania and one each from nine other countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia. The class of 1996 also represents different types of libraries -- national, university, public and special -- and different functions within those libraries.

The class of 1996 and its host institutions are: Ludmila Adamirova, Central Food Library, Institute of Agricultural and Food Information, Prague, Czech Republic (National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, Md.); Evgenia Ivanova-Batzelova, Medical University Library, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.); Maris Jaagosild, Estonian National Museum, Tartu, Estonia (Library of Congress, American Folklife Center); Natalya Kovaloya, Byelorussian Cartographic and Geodetic Association, Minsk, Belarus (National Archives II, Cartographic and Architectural Branch, College Park, Md.); Marek Krosniak, Astronomical Observatory Library, Jagellonian University, Krakow, Poland (Naval Observatory Library, Washington, D.C.); Doina Lica, Library of the Timisoara Branch of the Romanian Academy, Timisoara, Romania (National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, D.C.); Edite Muizniece, Latvian Academic Library, Riga, Latvia (University of Maryland, McKeldin Library, College Park, Md.); Jaroslav Susol, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia (Catholic University of America, Mullen Library, Washington, D.C.); Larisa Sviridova, Novosibirsk Regional Library, Novosibirsk, Russia (Alexandria Library, Alexandria, Va.); Daniela Toth, George Baritiu (Public) Library, Brasov, Romania (Arlington County Central Library, Arlington, Va.); Elektra Tsigaridas, National and University Library, Ljubljana, Slovenia (George Washington University, Gelman Library, Washington, D.C., and Library of Congress, Science and Technology Division).

# # #

PR 96-19
1/23/96
ISSN 0731-3527