Electronic Documentation Center (EDC), Moscow
The Library of the Electronic Documentation Center, the documentation arm of ZhIF, Women's Innovation Foundation, Moscow, has been established, within the context of the project "Transition to democracy in Russia: supporting the establishment of women's rights"financed by the TACIS Democracy Programme with co-financing from the UNFPA, with the intent of providing information on women's human, political, economic and reproductive rights to women, journalishts, scholars, students, researchers, teachers, government structures, non-governamental organizations in Russia and abroad.
Organization of collections
The documents have been arranged on open shelves for direct user access. The shelves are divided according to eight Broad Subject Headings which correspond to the main sectors that have been selected as priviledged fields of interest within the topics covered by women's rights studies. Each subject heading is distinguished by a symbol letter (e.g. F for Family). The indication of the location symbol appears on each processed item of the collection and is combined with a number. Each Broad Subject Heading follows its numeration caracterized by the symbol letter. The combination of the two elements constitutes the location number or call number of each document which corresponds to the physical location of the item in the shelves.
e.g. F1 indicates a book stored in the position n. 1 of the shelve containing items collected under the Broad Subject Heading Family
Grey literature (unpublished items, etc.) is distinguished by the letter g. added to the previous location number system and is stored together with monograph literature on the shelves in separate containers, following the Broad Subject Headings division. Ephimeral literature ( brochures, pamphlets, etc.) are also included in the containers.
e.g. Fg.1 will indicate a grey literature document stored in the position n.1 of the shelve containing the items collected under the Broad Subject Heading Family in the special container.
The Broad Subject Headings are:
FAMILY ( F) - the concept of family is meant as structure of roles, therefore it includes also the term "family planning" when it is used in the sense of household management; other concepts included in this sector are: household.
GENDER (GE) - this sector includes all materials connected to the concept of "gender", together with "equality","women's empowerment", "women's roles" and "women's status".
HEALTH (H) - "Family planning"has been included in this sector when it is referred to the medical and procreation meaning.
LABOUR (L) - this term has been selected in its widest meaning, it includes: credit, economy, economic crisis, micro- enterprises, structural adjustment, work.
POPULATION (P) - the term has been utilized in a restricted sense and it refers to population and demography. Statistical data documents are included in this sector.
GENERALITIES (G) - all the material which could not be sorted on the basis of the previous categories is included here together with documents which are structured in a very generic way. Feminism as history of feminism has been included here.
GENERAL WORKS (GW) -this last sector concerns technical material necessary for the whole activity of documentation and information such as: directories, encyclopedias, documentation literature, and various types of manuals, authority lists, geographical listings, dictionaries, etc.
with the intent of facilitating retrieval of information six Authority Lists have been prepared and are available for consultation:
The Thesaurus lends itself to two following kinds of use: to index documents that will be processed in order to store and incorporate information into a data bank; . to retrieve such information in response to users' queries. The terms selected are indicated on the basis of their hierarchical relation. A scope note (SN) is present when necessary, to explain application of the term. (UF) stands for 'used for' and refers to synonymous terms. (BT) broader term and (NT) narrower term express hierarchical relation to the term considered. Finally (RT) related term is an associated term. (USE) indicates a preferred term to be used in entering data or for searching.
More information for EDC's users
All manuals for computer program are not only in English but also in Russian. We have a special manual Heurisko for user's search and print through this computer program in out library for selection and searching of need bibliographies. We are in process creating a telematic network of regional documentation centres and developing a telematics user's service of EDC's database. EDC offers service not only telematicaly but manual. Our office located in center of Moscow: Moscow, ul. Ordzhonikidze, 3-120