UNESCO IITE participated in the International Conference “Book and Reading in the Digital Age”, which was held within the framework of the Year of the Book in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on 16-17 May 2019 in Bishkek (Kyrgyz Republic).
The Conference addressed the role of books and reading in promoting education, preservation of culture, peace and solidarity, as well as the importance of media and information literacy in the digital age.
The Conference was organized by the Interregional Library Cooperation Center, the Russian Committee of the UNESCO Information for All Programme, the National Library of the Kyrgyz Republic named after Alykul Osmonov, and the Association of Public Libraries of the Kyrgyz Republic with the support of the Intergovernmental Foundation for Educational, Scientific and Cultural Cooperation of the CIS, the Ministry of Culture, Information and Tourism of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Plenipotentiary of the Government of Chui Region of the Kyrgyz Republic.
The Conference brought together over 150 specialists from the CIS and neighboring countries – Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Scientists in humanities, journalism and media education, library science and pedagogy, teachers and educational methodologists, writers and publishers, decision makers and representatives of NGOs participated in the Conference.
The work of the Conference was organized in four thematic sections:
- Written culture and communication: past, present and future
- Reading and a book in the education system
- A book, reading and a library
- Reading and publishing
Tatiana Murovana, Programme Specialist at UNESCO IITE, delivered the presentation “Connecting the unconnected: a competent reader of the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution” at the session “Written culture and communication: past, present and future”. In her presentation, Ms. Murovana analyzed the reading competence and knowledge, attitudes, skills and practices that are integrated in media and information literacy. Tatiana Murovana proposed to discuss the approach to combining these complementary areas of competence, the importance of which increases in the context of constant change under the influence of new information and communication technologies.
During the Conference, the participants analyzed the outcomes, challenges and perspectives of the activities carried out in each country to support and develop reading, ways and means of improving the efficiency of these activities, with a special emphasizes on the indispensable role of books and reading in solving socially significant problems in the changing world.
