Digital Development Ministry wants to preserve already published books by “foreign agents” and “undesirable” organizations. Otherwise, 50-70% of library collections will disappear

The Digital Development Ministry wants to preserve already published books by “foreign agents” and “undesirable” organizations. Otherwise, 50-70% of library collections will disappear

The Digital Development Ministry is proposing the “legal legitimization” of books by “foreign agents” and “undesirable” organizations that were published before the authorities assigned them those statuses. Kommersant writes about this.

Vladimir Grigoryev, head of the ministry’s department for state support of the print and book industry, said that the Digital Development Ministry is discussing this with the Justice Ministry, the Interior Ministry, and the presidential administration.

Among the organizations recognized as undesirable here, for example, are the Soros Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund, which financed the publication of Russian classics in the 1990s, as well as the best examples of local history literature.

Leading universities have also been declared undesirable, including Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford, which publish textbooks on physics, astronomy, and mathematics. Thus, under the direct enforcement of the current law, they must be banned and removed from libraries and bookstores,

Grigoryev said.

He added that law enforcement agencies consider “prohibited” even those books that were published with financial support or assistance from “undesirable organizations.”

Therefore, according to Grigoryev, the Digital Development Ministry “supports the need to discuss law enforcement practice or changes to the current legislation.”

Otherwise, the ministry believes, municipal libraries will have to remove 50-70% of their collections.

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