LARGEST DIGITAL MEDIA DOCUMENTATION AVAILABLE AT LIBRARIES ACROSS SERBIA September 2007 – The Digital Press Reading Room is a project by Media Documentation Ebart, supported by the <strong>Telenor</strong> Foundation, within which electronic press documentation has been made available <strong>for</strong> free use at the largest libraries of Serbia. This documentation, interestingly named Current Archive, contains around 1.5 million newspaper articles starting with at the beginning of 2003, and up 48 hours ago, due to copyrights regulations. The archive consists of daily and weekly newspapers that are published nationally, as well as the most important local papers. You can access the Archive through the Ebart website www.arhiv.rs. It is classified in 12 clear displays, is fully searchable, and is updated daily with around 1,000 articles. The Reading Room project, which was launched in August 2007, covers 20 central libraries in Serbia – Užice, Sombor, Subotica, Kikinda, Zrenjanin, Sremska Mitrovica, Pančevo, Šabac, Valjevo, Jagodina, Smederevo, Niš, Kragujevac, Kruševac, Čačak, Kraljevo, Vranje, Leskovac, Zaječar and Bor. The aim of Ebart and the <strong>Telenor</strong> Foundation was to make such a public service available to the largest possible population. Pursuing such an idea, in September <strong>2008</strong>, the <strong>Telenor</strong> Foundation extended financial assistance <strong>for</strong> the project <strong>for</strong> another six months, and Ebart decided to grant members of the public free access to TV news programs from the six top-rated television stations through its Video Archive during this period. In early 2005 Ebart launched a program of free access to the electronic press archive <strong>for</strong> libraries in Serbia, in cooperation with the National Library of Serbia, with the support of the Serbian Ministry of Culture. With the assistance of the <strong>Telenor</strong> Foundation this program was successfully continued in 2007, and talks are under way with representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Secretariat <strong>for</strong> Culture of Vojvodina to further expand it. 56 Corporate Responsibility
Velimir Ćurgus Kazimir and Ivan Ćurgus at the opening of digital media reading room in Pančevo,“Digital Media Reading Room” project in cooperation with Ebart Media Documentation Corporate Responsibility 57