The National Library of Latvia (NLL) invites participants in the 5th World Congress of Latvian Scientists Research Latvia to visit the NLL for an introduction to the diverse research activities undertaken by the Library. The visits will take place on 27 June at 11.00 or 14.00. Advance registration is required (more information and registration links in the event programme below).

 

Participants will be introduced to two main areas of the NLL’s research activities: an interdisciplinary perspective on research into the history of and contemporary processes into publishing and reading, and digital humanities. Participants will have the opportunity to meet NLL researchers and find out about a number of current projects and processes. These include national research-communication activities such as the 500 Years of Latvian Books series of events (more information HERE), the NLL’s research publishing activities (publications can be viewed HERE) and exhibitions as vehicles for disseminating research results to a wider public.

 

Research on the history of books and reading is a prism through which to discover a wider range of socio-political processes and the history of ideas. The NLL’s special collections – rare books and manuscripts, graphic publications, posters, sheet music, maps, audiovisual materials and ephemera – are essential and unique resources for this work. NLL researchers and collection experts need to have both broad horizons and specific knowledge, as well as the ability to cooperate with professionals from different disciplines. The NLL is also open to cooperation with research institutions and individual researchers in different fields, both in Latvia and abroad, to seek new perspectives and keep abreast of the latest research trends.

 

At the same time, the NLL is developing research areas related to the digital environment and content. These are: data and knowledge organisation and creation, authoritative data (including the National Thesaurus), data representation and transfer (linked data, the semantic web), communication studies (research into the visualisation of information, the paradigm shift in research communication, including digital publishing, Open Access, Open Data) and the digitisation, long-term preservation, access to, the language corpus of our cultural heritage, as well as our digitally created cultural heritage. The NLL offers the use of digitised and digitally produced text collections for computer-assisted analysis for research and study projects. More information HERE.

 

Participants will also be able to find out about the NLL’s publishing activities, which include not only research monographs on various topics and source publications, but also the NLL Proceedings – one of the longest-running humanities’ and social science periodicals in Latvia and the Baltics, indexed in the Scopus database since 2022.

 

The visitors will not only find out about the main directions of the NLL’s research activities in a concise and engaging way, but will also be able to establish contact with NLL researchers and seek out potential areas of cooperation.

 

 

PROGRAMME:

Tuesday 27 June, Virtakas klase (Level 1), National Library of Latvia (Mūkusalas iela 3, Rīga)

Arrival 11.00 or 14.00

11.00–11.30 or 14.00–14.30

An overview of the NLL’s research activities, the 500 Years of Latvian Books series of events and scholarly publications. Presented by Dagnija Baltiņa, MA, Director of the NLL Special Collections Department and Pauls Daija PhD (philol.).

 

11.30–12.00 or 14.30–15.00

The NLL as a digital humanities’ laboratory. Presented by Anda Baklāne MA, Head of NLL Digital Research Services.

 

12.00–12.30 or 15.00–15.30

Guided tours:

Books in Latvia permanent exhibition, led by NLL Senior Researcher Gustavs Strenga, PhD;

Awakening. The Story of the Herrnhutians exhibition, led by NLL Senior Researcher Beata Paškevica, PhD.

 

Registration open until 22 June:

Register HERE for the 11.00 visit,

Register HERE for the 14.00 visit