Mishustin was shown a dryer for frozen books

Mishustin was shown a dryer for frozen books



The prime minister arrived at the INION RAS building restored after the fire

On the occasion of the Day of Science, Mikhail Mishustin visited the INION RAS building restored from the ashes, which is the main repository of books on social and humanitarian disciplines. The scientists acquainted the prime minister with the world's first fundamental work on the activities of Donald Trump and asked him to include the paper book in the list of traditional values ​​of Russians.

The fire in the INION RAS library became the main event of January 2015 and a real tragedy for the Institute staff. A huge number of valuable copies were damaged by the water with which firefighters flooded the book depository, and the building itself was almost lost. (The damage, by the way, has not been fully calculated until now.) Restoration work continued for about 7 years, and on the occasion of the Day of Science, Mikhail Mishustin was presented with the result - four floors of modern premises, reading rooms, a canteen, the Museum of the Formation of Social Sciences and, of course, modern book depositories with pneumatic mail and monorail delivery system.

However, the first thing they did was take the prime minister to the basement, where a drying chamber was installed. The fact is that part of the library collections in the form of ice blocks is still stored in the cold storage facility of the Federal Reserve. “500 tons of literature had to be specially frozen, and now we hope to bring them back to life using vacuum drying technology,” the scientists told Mishustin. According to Aleksey Kuznetsov, director of the institute, it will take more than one year to dry such a large number of books. In addition, the innovative dryer can be used in similar emergencies, which, unfortunately, are not rare. “And I believe that no one will be flooded! Mishustin interrupted him. “Everything will be fine if everything is done in accordance with safety regulations.”

INION RAS specializes in social and human sciences. Funds are formed on the principle of "legal deposit": this means that all books of the relevant subjects are deposited here at least in one copy. But this applies only to Russian publications. With foreigners, everything became difficult after February 24, 2022. “We are cut off from databases, from modern foreign periodicals. And not only for political reasons, but also because of difficulties with payment, ”complained the employees of the institute. They asked the Prime Minister to resolve the issue of purchasing foreign publications and gaining access to digital databases, since they are widely used in scientific work. In particular, based on such sources, INION RAS scientists were the first in the world to publish a fundamental work summing up the results of Donald Trump's presidency. (“Are they really the first in the world?” the prime minister did not believe.) They also conducted a deep analysis of foreign direct investment, revealing the role of offshore companies in the Russian economy. “This is very interesting,” Mishustin was delighted, asking to send a link to the study or provide its materials in paper form.

According to the head of the Cabinet, the government is not opposed to buying foreign literature and foreign databases on the humanities, you just need to understand what kind of sources science needs. In turn, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko said that "Western values ​​and role models imposed on us, thank God, have left the country." By presidential decree, values ​​traditional for Russia have been fixed, and now social scientists are faced with the task of confirming their presence “at all stages of the existence of Russian civilization.”

“Foreign literature carries its own values, its own cultural codes and propaganda. We must study all this and correctly pass it on to the youth,” Chernyshenko informed the participants of the meeting.

Another request of scientists concerned the support of scientific publications. Many works are now published digitally, but, in their opinion, it would be wrong to completely abandon paper, especially in connection with the concept of spiritual bonds promoted by the authorities. “A paper book is one of the traditional values,” Academician Makarov told Mishustin. “We have set a course for the preservation of traditional values. So we need to keep the book.”

Published in the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" No. 28967 dated February 8, 2023

Newspaper headline:
Scientists will melt the icy mountains of literature



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