ICBC Activities to Promote Reading

The Interregional Public Organization "Interregional Center for Library Cooperation" (ICBC) is one of the developers of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading (approved by the Federal Press Agency mass communications and the Russian Book Union in 2006) and the Concept of the Program for the Support and Development of Children's and Youth Reading in Russian Federation(approved by the Government of the Russian Federation in 2017).

In the period 2006 - 2017 ICBC has implemented more than 80 projects to promote reading in 65 regions of Russia (all-Russian and interregional scientific and practical conferences, seminars and round tables, trainings, Scientific research, monitoring, methodological developments etc.).

Among the projects implemented by MCBS:

• Organized and held 10 annual all-Russian scientific and practical conferences "National Program for the Support and Development of Reading: Problems and Prospects" in Moscow (these conferences were attended by leading experts from all reading support institutions from all regions of Russia, heads of federal and regional authorities);
• Organized and held interregional scientific and practical seminars to promote reading in the years. Astrakhan, Bryansk, Vladimir, Vologda, Ivanovo, Kaluga, Kaliningrad, Kemerovo, Kirov, Krasnodar, Moscow, Moscow region, Murmansk, Penza, Perm, Petrozavodsk, Pskov, Rostov-on-Don, Ryazan, Samara, St. Petersburg, Saransk , Simferopol, Sochi, Sevastopol, Simferopol, Stavropol, Sudak, Syktyvkar, Tomsk, Ulan-Ude, Ulyanovsk, Khanty-Mansiysk, Cheboksary, Chelyabinsk, Elista, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Yakutsk.

• Organized and held 3 all-Russian scientific and practical conferences "Libraries, publishing houses, book trade and the media: impact on the circle of reading" in Moscow;
• Educational programs to promote reading have been developed and are being implemented in accordance with state educational standards;
• 16 advanced training courses (trainings) were held on reading promotion technologies for specialists from various regions of Russia. Graduates of these programs were issued state diplomas;
• Competitions were held best ideas and projects to promote reading;
• Extensive monitoring of the activities of local authorities and libraries in the field of reading promotion was carried out (the results of these studies were published);
• A traveling exhibition of posters on the history of reading propaganda in the USSR has been formed; this exhibition traveled to different cities of Russia;
• Methods for assessing and self-evaluating the socio-cultural effectiveness of activities in the field of support and development of reading have been developed (for the first time in the world).

Publishing

ICBC prepared and published 28 books on the problems of reading promotion:

1. National Program for Support and Development of Reading. - M.: MTsBS, 2007. - 56 p. (Responsible for the release - Kuzmin E.I., Bakeikin S.D.)

2. « National Program for Reading Promotion and Development in Russia » (National Program for the Support and Development of Reading in Russia in English)

3. Recommendations for the development and implementation of a regional program for the support and development of reading // Scientific leaders of the development - Kuzmin E. I., Orlova E. A. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2007. - 64 p. .

4. Recommendations for the organization of the socio-cultural space for the implementation of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading at the Local Level // Scientific leaders of the development - Kuzmin E. I., Orlova E. A. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2007 - 88 p.

5. How to break the vicious circle: Support and development of reading: problems and opportunities: scientific and practical collection. / Comp. Kuzmin E. I., Gromova O. K. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2007. - 184 p.

6. Support and development of reading in the library space of Russia: a collection of scientific and practical works / Comp. Askarova V. Ya. (Responsible for the issue - Kuzmin E. I., Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2007. - 272 p.

7. National Program for the Support and Development of Reading: Year One. materials All-Russian Conference"National program for the support and development of reading: first results, problems and prospects" (Moscow, November 20, 2007) / Compilers and editors - Kuzmin E. I. (responsible editor), Parshakova A. V., Borodin O. R. (Responsible editor for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2008. - 120 p.

8. Askarova V.Ya. The concept of support and development of children's and youth reading in the Chelyabinsk region " / Scientific editors - Orlova E. A., Kuzmin E. I. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2008. - 48 p.

9. Orlova E. A. Recommendations for working with funds mass media within the framework of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading. Handbook for organizers of educational projects and events. / Scientific editors - Kuzmin E. I., Parshakova A. V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2008. - 72 p.

10. Orlova E. A. Recommendations for improving the level of reading competence in the framework of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading. Benefit for employees educational institutions/ Scientific editors - Kuzmin E. I., Parshakova A. V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2008. -72 p.

11. Kulikova E. V. Recommendations on the participation of children's libraries in the implementation of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading / Scientific editors - Kuzmin E. I., Parshakova A. V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2008. - 64 p.

12. School as a territory of reading. Collection of articles / Compiled by Volkov S.V., scientific editors - Kuzmin E.I., Parshakova A.V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S.D.) - M .: MTsBS, 2008. -88 p.;

13. Dubin B.V., Zorkaya N.A. Reading in Russia - 2008. Trends and problems / Scientific editors - Kuzmin E.I., Parshakova A.V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S.D.) -M .: MCBS, 2008. - 80 s.

14. National program for the support and development of reading: problems and prospects. materials II All-Russian Conference (Moscow, November 20-21, 2008) / Comp. Kuzmin E. I., Parshakova A. V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2009. - 280 p.

15. National program for the support and development of reading and guidelines on its implementation: collection of materials / Comp. Kuzmin E. I., Parshakova A. V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2009. - 480 p.

16. Stay. Look back ... Collection of information and analytical materials / Comp. Kuzmin E. I., Parshakova A. V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2009. - 104 p.

17. National Program for the Support and Development of Reading: year three. Proceedings of the All-Russian scientific and practical conference "Libraries, publishing houses, book trade and the media: impact on the circle of reading" (Moscow, November 19, 2009) and the III All-Russian scientific and practical conference "National program for the support and development of reading: results and prospects" ( Moscow, November 20, 2009) / Ed. Kuzmin E. I., Parshakova A. V. (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2010. - 216 p.

18. Regional policy and activities of libraries to support and develop reading: an analytical report on the results monitoring study. - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2010. - 108 p.

19. Stepanova A.S., Yalysheva V.V. Regional centers of books and reading in Russia / Ed. editor E. I. Kuzmin (Responsible for the issue - Bakeikin S. D.). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2010. - 176 p.

20. Support and development of reading: trends and problems (following the results of five years of implementation of the National Program for Support and Development of Reading in Russia). Collection of articles / Ed.-sost. E. I. Kuzmin, A. V. Parshakova (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin) - M .: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2011. - 216 p.

21. National Program for the Support and Development of Reading: Year Four. Proceedings of the II All-Russian scientific and practical conference "Libraries, publishing houses, book trade and the media: impact on the circle of reading" (Moscow, November 18, 2010) and the IV All-Russian scientific and practical conference "National program for the support and development of reading: results and prospects" (Moscow, November 19, 2010) / Ed. E. I. Kuzmin, A. V. Parshakova (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin). - M .: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2011. - 216 p.

22. National Program for Support and Development of Reading: Year Five. materials V All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference "National Program for the Support and Development of Reading: Problems and Prospects" (Moscow, November 18, 2011) / Ed. E. I. Kuzmin, A. V. Parshakova (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin). - M .: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2012. -136 p.

23. Reading of Moscow teenagers in real and electronic environment. Materials of sociological research / Comp. V. P. Chudinova (Responsible for the issue S. D. Bakeikin). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2012. -144 p.

24. National Program for Support and Development of Reading. Sixth year / Editors - compilers: E. I. Kuzmin, A. V. Parshakova (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2013. - 128 p.

25. Reading crisis: the energy of overcoming. Collection of scientific and practical works./Editor-compiler - V. Ya. Askarova. (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin) - M .: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2013. - 320 p.

26. National Program for Support and Development of Reading. Seventh year / Editors - compilers: E. I. Kuzmin, D. D. Ignatova. (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin) - M .: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2014. - 176 p.

27. National Program for Support and Development of Reading. Eighth year / Editors - compilers: E. I. Kuzmin, D. D. Ignatova (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2015. - 168 p.

28. Reading. XXI century. Collective monograph. / Scientific editor-compiler - V. Ya. Askarova (Responsible for the issue of S. D. Bakeikin). - M.: Interregional Center for Library Cooperation, 2015. - 472 p.

More than 25,000 copies of these professional publications have been distributed free of charge to libraries in Russia and other CIS countries.

The target audience of all ICBC projects to promote reading were the heads of libraries, scientific and educational institutions, publishers, booksellers, and journalists. Each time they were also attended by representatives of federal ministries, regional and municipal authorities authorities, world famous cultural figures of foreign countries, including the two-time president of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA).

All ICBS projects were widely covered in mass regional mass media and in all-Russian specialized editions of the library, book publishing and bookselling industry.

The ICBC has constantly drawn the attention of the general public and local authorities to the need to address the problems of reading promotion. 11 regions of Russia adopted regional programs in support of reading, the attitude towards libraries as a conductor of reading has changed, the attitude towards the problems of promoting reading in the libraries themselves and educational institutions has changed.

There is no doubt that, thanks to this activity, the destructive processes in the field of reading were at least slowed down, and the issues of reading, teaching literature and the Russian language were brought to the state level.

As a result, a scientific, methodological and methodological base was developed for the implementation of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading (in particular, recommendations for the promotion of reading for public and children's libraries, for regional authorities, educational institutions, the media - this is nowhere in the world!).

In general, this is a serious groundwork in order to bring the activity to promote reading in Russia to a serious political level and to achieve the adoption state program funded properly.

The activities of the MCBC in the field of reading promotion received the highest rating in Russia. Evidence of this is the many thanks and certificates of honor various federal and regional authorities. Employees and partners (experts) of the ICBC are regularly invited to give lectures in the regions of Russia and in foreign countries. Reports on our activities at international book fairs in Italy and Bulgaria caused a great response.

Why did Russia, which created great fiction and which until recently considered itself the most reading country in the world, need National Program for Support and Development of Reading?

The fact is that in the context of ongoing political and economic reforms, globalization, the rapid formation of information society On a global scale, Russia faces a lot of problems.

Russia will have to develop, keeping itself in high competitive environment. And for this, it is necessary that the entire population of the country (including the political class, the business community, and the managerial level) have such a level of knowledge and cultural competence that would be sufficient for successful adaptation to an ever-complicating reality.

Mankind has entered the phase of building a global information society, and progress is now almost primarily determined by the speed and quality of information exchange channels, the degree of accessibility and quality of information itself, and most importantly, by the extent to which it is mastered by the whole society.

The problems of reading are much broader and more complex than the problems of reading only books and the problems of reading only fiction and its propaganda.

Reading is development of written information contained in books, magazines, newspapers, various documents, official and personal correspondence.

Not only books and not only fiction, but also periodicals(not only in print, but also in in electronic format) in science and technology, economics and politics, culture and art, history and philosophy expand ideas about the world and the processes taking place in it, allow you to understand and correctly assess the surrounding reality, navigate it more successfully, make competent decisions at all levels - an individual, organization, city, region, whole country, the whole world.

Decreased interest in reading is common global trend, caused by the rapid development of electronic media and the entertainment industry, which are crowding out reading both as a prestigious source of information and as a pleasant form of leisure.

However, in many countries, both highly developed and actively modernizing, political and cultural elites are making active (and successful!) attempts to counteract this, since reading plays an extremely important role for the development of any country.

Russia has come to the critical limit of the neglect of reading. We are experiencing a systemic crisis of reading (and writing) culture. The share of young people systematically reading in our country has decreased from 48% (1991) to 28% (2005). 63%. In 1991, 61% of Russians read newspapers daily; in 2005, only 24%. For journals, the figures are 16% and 7%, respectively. In the 1970s, 80% of families regularly read to children, today - only 7%. The choice of both professional and fiction literature for reading speaks of a decline in taste even in an intellectual environment.

That is why the implementation of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading in Russia is dictated by an urgent vital necessity.

It was only during the development of the Program that it became clear how complex and large-scale, multifaceted and multi-level the problem of reading is in our country. Issues of accessibility and adequate understanding of texts, problems of distribution of books and periodicals, the state of publishing, libraries, educational institutions, the media, our entire information environment, the content and priorities of policy in the field of culture and education, and finally, the very need for reading both in children and and in adults - everything here is closely intertwined and interdependent.

As never before, Russia is now publishing a colossal variety of books and other printed matter, but this potentially huge effect is largely offset by the underdevelopment of infrastructure book trade, and from the poverty of our people and our libraries, which are not able to acquire these books, and from the underestimation of the role of libraries, and from the loss of interest in reading among the majority of the population, and from many other things.

In order to increase the level of knowledge and cultural competence of the entire population in Russia, such a social climate, such an information environment and such conditions should be created that would simultaneously encourage all people to read and would provide them with the availability of any modern publications - in bookstores, and in libraries, and on the Internet. There should be institutes and institutions whose responsibilities are officially charged with the function of supporting reading, and the specialists working in them are trained in appropriate methods and technologies. Now in our country no one is politically or morally responsible for supporting reading, and there is a severe shortage of relevant specialists.

A huge role in the Program is assigned to the media, especially television and radio. It is on them that we have special hope - no one is better than them, faster and more efficient, unable to make the image of a book man, a man reading in public opinion associated with success in life, so that everyone understands that reading is necessary, fashionable and prestigious, and not reading is shameful and ridiculous.

The Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications and the Russian Book Union are convinced that the active implementation of the National Program for the Support and Development of Reading will change the attitude towards book, reading culture as something secondary in society and in government structures and will lead to an increase in the intellectual potential of the nation, help in solving vital problems.

The National Program for the Support and Development of Reading, developed by Rospechat together with the Russian Book Union, was presented to the President of the Russian Federation and, as a result of consideration, was included in the list of instructions of the President of the Russian Federation to the government following the meeting of the State Council of the Russian Federation on December 26, 2006. The order states that the government must before May 1, 2007"to define a system of measures that contribute to the deepening of interest in the book, in the national and world literary, historical, scientific heritage, in modern literature."

In 2007 - at the initial stage of the Program implementation - the efforts of all interested parties in the country should create such an atmosphere so that everyone understands the need for daily, painstaking and exciting work in this direction and starts it.

NATIONAL READING SUPPORT AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Good afternoon, dear colleagues. For many years I used to be the head of the Department of Libraries of the Ministry of Culture, but I had to leave a year and a half ago, when the administrative reform showed its first fruits. Since then, I have been developing the institutions of civil society and, to be fair, I must say, I do this with the help of the state. The National Program for the Support and Development of Reading, the development of which I had the honor to lead on the order of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications, is an example of very interesting and fruitful cooperation: between the state, represented by the said Federal Agency, and big business, represented by the Russian Book Union. This program is the fruit of a compromise between the leading players and leading politicians in this area. The program was solemnly signed last Friday here at the St. Petersburg Book Salon by the head of the Book Union, Stepashin, and the head of the Federal Agency, Seslavinsky.

This is my tenth report on the national reading support program, I have a contract with the Federal Agency to popularize this program and promote the idea itself in the framework of national policy formation. It is clear that the program is not the whole policy, it is only one of the elements of the policy. It is believed that the program will become a catalyst for the formation of a national policy in the field of support and development of reading, and this policy will be formed not only by federal authorities, but also by regional, municipal, large business structures, their associations, as well as civil society institutions. This idea underlies our development, which was adopted. It is very difficult for me to present the entire program to you today, because it is a large document, and from my point of view, everything is important there. Several of my previous talks took two hours, tomorrow at the Non Fiction fair again a seminar on this topic - promotion of the program and the need for policymaking on a national scale, and there will also be two hours. Today I have 15-20 minutes at my disposal, and I will allow myself to speculate not so much around the program as around the very problem of reading, awareness of this problem, its scope, depth, and its various aspects. The starting point was this: the observations of big booksellers and big publishers that sales are constantly falling and something needs to be done about it. A few years ago, in the bowels of the Ministry of Press, round tables gathered and tried to formulate something and collect it into a kind of common document. This activity continued for several years until it was institutionalized, a state contract was formed, working groups were assembled and they began to work. The first thing we encountered is that the literature contains 500 definitions of what reading is, and each of the experts in this field defines the problem, its size, its volume, depth and severity in different ways. Everyone absolutized their own experience. There are psychologists in the field children's reading who know how to introduce a child to reading. There are specialists in the field of studying what people read when they come to public libraries. There are narrower specialists who study what they read in the field of fiction in public libraries in the Russian province. There are sociologists of reading, there are organizers of reading - librarians, there are teachers who see the problem from their own point of view, and each carries his own segmental, fragmentary view and absolutizes his vision of the problem. We were faced with the fact that for several months everyone, taking the floor, said: the most important thing is this. Five minutes later, another spoke, who said: no, I basically agree with the previous speaker, but the most important thing is this. And so we went in circles. And this forced the developers to think deeply anew about what reading is.

Let's see what happens if we start from individual concepts of reading. For example, many believe that reading is a source of spirituality. For example, Churchill spoke of Hitler as an exclusively spiritual person, who was torn apart by the spirits of vengeance, resentment, and revenge. And this happened because Hitler read a lot of the medieval German epic, and Churchill saw the nature of Hitler's "extraordinary spirituality" there.

Reading elevates the soul, it shapes the personality, reading is the source of formation patriotic education population. Here we began to remember, but were not the Russian soldiers who fought for their homeland in 1812 patriots? They could hardly be considered readers of patriotic literature.

Reading is a source of obtaining information, we began to think further, but questions immediately arose: what kind of information, etc. and so on. Reading was associated with a book, with Russian literature, and Russian literature helps to understand the traits of the Russian character ... Immediately, others said that the traits of the Russian character are very helpful in understanding Western travelers, the Marquis de Custine, for example, who, without going into subtleties, outlined the Russian character . Then they talked about the great classical Russian literature, it is the basis for the formation of national identity, because it is beautiful, and they immediately remembered that the great Russian classical literature is all built on criticism of the features of the Russian national character. As a rule, she condemned and highlighted the most negative things that happened both in the Russian community and in the character of the Russian peasant.

As a result of summarizing everything that each of the experts correctly said, I wanted to reach a basic definition of "reading". What, in fact, people should understand uniformly across the country, being on different levels education, at different levels of authority, responsibility, etc. The following definition was adopted: reading is the assimilation of written information. This dry working definition caused a well-known cultural shock among our humanitarian intelligentsia, it seemed to them very unspiritual. Does the book you read always have to be "spiritual"? Evgeny Grigorievich, what are you reading now [Addresses E. G. Yasin, - ed. ], what is the name of the book? I believe that "Expertise in the Modern World" does not elevate the soul of Evgeny Grigorievich in any way, it can confuse his mind with its stupidity, and if the right things are written there, they are probably written in complex language, and this reading will exhaust the mind, strain for systematic work, not having nothing to do with the spiritual and noble. If people who are engaged in armaments read amazing specialized literature on making explosives and think about how to create a weapon so that it hits as many people as possible in a unit of time, then this also has nothing to do with spirituality.

We can also talk about professional reading, reading for educational purposes, reading for recreational purposes, and we will see a huge range of problems that must be analyzed. The definition of reading as the development of written information covers all genres that are present, all types of publications: books, magazines, periodicals, reading on the Internet - reading for different purposes, reading by different categories of people. What other information is available? Information can be visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, etc. And all these types of information allow a person to navigate in the surrounding space. We should also think about what the information space of Russia is like. And here it was impossible not to remember that Russia is a transitional society that is moving from traditional forms of culture to innovative ones, it is moving from a traditional society to an information society. And like any transitional society, its information space is disordered, compared to the previous state of society in the Soviet era, when it was known who the communicator was, who the recipient was, what information the communicator was generating, what he wanted to convey and to whom. Everything was rigidly rationed, and in this sense space was ordered. Men of science received one information, workers and peasants received other information, and so on. Information exchanges existed. But the information space of Russia is still disordered in comparison with Western highly modernized countries: England, the USA, Germany, etc. And in this disordered state, when information exchange between megacities and other types of settlements is difficult: medium-sized cities, small towns, villages, - between different professional environments, between different social groups, between the rich and the poor, between the elderly and the young… Everyone today lives in their own information space, which is being fragmented before our eyes, and Alexander Arkhangelsky illustrated and predicted this very interestingly.

In this situation of disordered information space, mastering written information is extremely important. Why? Because it is in written information that the most important socially significant information about how history developed different countries, including Russia, what were the contradictions, what were the solutions, what were the dead ends, what were the exits. It is in written information, in book culture, in written culture that information is accumulated about what a norm is in different societies, at different times, what values ​​are, what they were, what were false, etc. Basic socially significant knowledge is accumulated in written culture and are not transmitted in other ways.

Then the question arose: what, in fact, does the population of Russia want? The population of Russia claims to high quality life corresponding to the level achieved in developed countries. This requires a comprehensive modernization of the country so that Russia can successfully compete in world politics, economics and culture with other countries, while not quarreling with them, but building some models constructive interaction. What prevents this? This is hampered by the lack of constructive ideas, knowledge, information that circulate in all layers. Russian society, including its political elite, the managerial stratum, the business community, etc. And this lack of constructive ideas, knowledge and information is intensified, aggravated by the fact that less and less of the population of the country today reads, that is, masters the necessary written information and necessary for successful life of knowledge that is generated both outside our country and inside our country, but does not reach due to broken information links from one layer to another layer, from one professional group to another, from one region to another region. Also, an important problem in this disordered information space is that there is insufficient information exchange between Russia and other countries, for various reasons, in particular due to poor knowledge of foreign languages. Ya. I. Kuzminov, speaking at the plenary session, said that if this is the case with foreign languages, then we will simply have nothing to offer in the system of the global division of labor, they simply will not understand us - what we offer, and we will not understand what is needed there.

And the diagnosis was made: Russia has approached the critical limit of the neglect of reading, we are experiencing a systemic crisis of reading culture and a systemic crisis of book culture in the country. As evidenced by the following things. First, the proportion of the population that reads is declining, even the proportion of the population that reads from time to time is declining. The figures for the last 10 years have dropped by 20%. When we talk about the single information space of the country, it is supported only by television channels, this is general information, there is nothing else. As for television, you yourself know the quality of information it broadcasts today. If 15 years ago all-Russian newspapers and magazines were read by 67% of the population, now they are read by 7%, that is, loci are being atomized. Parents stopped reading to their children. Entire sections of the population dropped out of reading for various reasons of a socio-economic nature. The exactingness of the tastes of the reading audience is decreasing, more and more emphasis is placed on entertaining reading, where there is a minimum of intellectual effort. This is especially evident in the case of teenagers and young people. There were world studies that showed that our children at the age of 7-8 years correspond to the level of intellectual development of civilized countries, but as they go to school, they fall lower and lower. Accordingly, publishers react to this in the following way - they also reduce the release of information-rich literature, complex literature both in content and in form. Proficiency in Russian is deteriorating, including on public platforms such as television. The impoverishment of the dictionary leads to the impoverishment of meanings, to the loss of meanings, the world reality becomes more complicated, and the meanings by which it is described are simplified and primitivized.

Functional illiteracy is growing, libraries are poorly stocked, they cannot offer people what they objectively need, the library in the public mind is gradually being pushed to the periphery of attention and, accordingly, its funding is further reduced. In managerial circles, which is very scary, the idea is growing that with the development of the Internet, libraries and books will not be needed. When ordinary people say it, it's not so scary, but when people who distribute public resources say it, it's scary. This means that they do not understand either the nature of the development of world civilization as an information society, where all types of information - written, oral, Internet, and printed - are growing; they do not understand the role of libraries, the Internet, reading; they do not understand how world civilization is developing and how Russia can fit into these global processes.

The totality of these signs suggests that Russia has approached the critical limit of the neglect of reading. And further, if nothing is done, continue to develop as we are developing, difficult social consequences because unresolved social problems accumulate in society. And this already threatens with social disintegration and social unrest, because people who are culturally competent, read a lot, who know the Russian language, who have mastered its wealth, who can identify problems, formulate them and offer the right solutions, can negotiate among themselves. The reduction of reading is a global trend, it is a global process associated with the development of the media, the development of the mass media of the entertainment industry, which displace reading as a source of important information and as a means of recreation. How did the world react to these problems?

Reading support programs were adopted in developed countries, they were initiated by the political elite, who were afraid of the extinction of reading as a source of maintaining the social foundations of society, and by the cultural elite, which promoted all this for humanitarian, humanistic reasons. These programs proved to be effective, in particular, due to the fact that they were not addressed to the entire population in general (the average temperature in a hospital is difficult to treat), but to various sociocultural groups, and were aimed at stimulating reading, taking into account cognitive interests and cultural needs, taking into account the level education and economic opportunities to support them.

Address programs should be formed. Which target groups in Russia? In Russia, there are other target groups, unlike France and England, where the emphasis was on people in prisons, on migrants - they came to England, they don’t know in English, history, traditions, culture, they must be integrated into society. These are relatively small social groups. In Russia, such a group is actually the entire population. And today, the main task is to: a) instill in young people the need for reading and return to reading huge sections of the population that have dropped out of it over the past 10 years; b) create conditions for the population to have access to books, because today 90% of the literature published in Moscow and St. Petersburg does not reach the territory of the constituent entities of the Federation, even in a single copy. Not in the head libraries of the province huge amount sources that carry socially important, vital knowledge. Including knowledge of how transformations are taking place in Russia.

Let's take a purely Russian misconception - in Russia, reading is associated mainly with the reading of fiction. At the same time, they forget about political, economic, sociological, cultural, and other literature, which today, first of all, needs to be mastered, because it forms new picture world, and not only gives a literary sketch to this life, to these tendencies. Yes, reading is still associated with reading books, forgetting that there are magazines, newspapers, the Internet. And with the help of the Internet today, young people are involved in reading, especially educated young people. It is forgotten that reading is absolutely necessary for the normal development of political life, because it is reading that equips professional politicians with knowledge of what socially acceptable decisions they can make so that society does not reject them, so that some kind of development takes place. A ordinary people Reading equips us, non-politicians, with the means of recognizing manipulative efforts on the part of politicians. If you do not read, then you will not understand this language, these codes, in which they communicate with each other. In the economic field, just reading provides an in-depth understanding of economic trends and their implications. In the field of law, reading provides a cumulation of the legal experience that society generates and gives access to this legal experience when we need it. Not to mention the fact that reading for education is the transmission of obligatory social knowledge and information.

The problem is that, on the one hand, reading is necessary in order to make the right decisions, both at the level of federal, regional and municipal authorities, and at the level of public organizations and institutions. Reading is necessary for the development of the intellectual potential of a person and society, reading is necessary in order to improve the quality of cultural activity of citizens. The second aspect of the problem is that it is necessary to master modern social necessary knowledge, but there is no access to this knowledge, since the channels for distributing books and periodicals have been destroyed, only 15% of the population of the country use the Internet, entire layers of literature are not available to the majority of the population, libraries are almost not completed. If we look at what is happening with libraries, we will see that at least half of the country lives in a zone of information isolation from the modern achievements of world thought and civilization. It is necessary to have access to information in any form, but there is no access.

Our program is aimed at complete solution all these problems. We also have the resources to solve them - this is a network of libraries, and a network of schools, many good publishing houses, many excellent stores, and there are ideas about the prestige of reading that have not been completely lost in society, there are people who are ready to work in this direction. It is important to combine these disparate resources into a single program. And it is very important to implement the program in a differentiated way, according to the types of regions - an advanced region, a depressed region, a region with growth zones, a region with growth points; by population groups - rich, poor; by type of education; by types of settlements - metropolis, middle city, large city, village; by type of publications - books, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, by types of institutions - libraries can do one thing, education can do another, book publishing can do a third, bookselling a fourth, authorities a fifth. All this is important, gradually stimulating various potential participants who can change the situation for the better, unite, equip them with resources and knowledge. Today, both are bad things. But there is hope that it will change for the better.