18.04.2008

Ladies and gentlemen, friends of the Library!

The essence and the value of our conference are found in the fact that the discussion of today urges us to look at the library in a wider context and from the most diverse vantage points. Thus the library becomes visible both as part of the national culture and information society. Its construction can be viewed as a one-off object of construction and as a part of a much broader economic processes. Allow me to add my vision to the total landscape formed by the participants of this conference.

I view the not yet built library as the state paying off its debt to society. This debt has grown over several decades, when no deserving place for storage and use was found for the information collected in meticulous and self-denying work. An uncleared debt is always unpleasant, and I believe that it is high time to pay back this debt to the society.

A library conforming to the contemporary and future needs is a feature of a developed state, a confirmation of the development level reached by the state and the nation, attesting its spiritual richness. Perhaps in our everyday life we have become too used to measuring the development level of the state and the prosperity of the society in very utilitarian categories, calculating the number of internet connections, fridges or cars per thousand of population. It is much more difficult to measure the spiritual richness of a society, but the main library worthy of the nation would undoubtedly be one of the measurable indicators.

It seems to me that a system of libraries functioning in a contemporary way, with a rich and active National Library in the centre of it with such equipment and technical possibilities that would allow it to provide rapidly all the services expected by the potential client is an absolute necessity, if we want to build knowledge society in this country. Undeniably, the information society develops very fast; huge amount of information becomes more extensively and locally accessible, in the place of residence or studies of each person. However, as Andris Vilks already said, the belief that is sometimes heard that the new channels of information will completely replace libraries is unfounded.

If the libraries and their staff are able to move forwards with the time, it will in any case make the process of selecting and retrieving information easier, not to mention the important function of safeguarding culture heritage that the library will retain for ever.

However, there is one more process that we seldom consider in connection with the library, i.e., the link between the construction of the library and the general processes in the national economy. It is obvious to all of us that after several years of rapid – even too rapid! – economic growth the national economy has started to cool off. This is a natural course of development and is economically substantiated. This year and for a few of the coming years the main concern should be not to allow the economy to cool off too rapidly, so that the state would retain a slightly lower, but stable and sustainable growth.

It is obvious that the sharp fall of the line of economic development has a particularly severe impact upon some specific sectors of economy, and construction and some auxiliary branches connected to it are the first to be mentioned. From this point of view the construction of the library is a very significant stimulating factor (and perhaps even an anchor) for the construction sector, and consequently – for the stabilisation of the general macroeconomic processes. It is important for this sector to retain the production capacity, to keep qualified labour force and make an effective use of it, and to a large extent the scope of the library project will help to do it.

Of course, constructing the library costs money, and the always cautious attitude taken by the Bank of Latvia towards the state budget expenditure is well-known. However, we clearly support the library project, because we see it as a long-term investment not only into the building or the maintenance of one sector, but, first and foremost, into human resources, creation of a developed and knowledgeable society.

One aspect seems to me very important. The started project should be implemented very intensively and fast. Even considering that with each year of delay the construction and all other costs increase, further delays might acquire a symbolic meaning: the envisaged castle of light project might turn into the symbol of indecisiveness and inconsistence that will be mentioned by the generations to come for a long time. I do believe that it is not going to happen and I wish to the implementers of the project true success and especially to Andris Vilks – perseverance to implement all the plans successfully.