Dissertation Studies on the History of Librarianship: Historiographical Review

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to present the historiographical review of the studies on the history of domestic librarianship, aimed at summarizing the interim results and identifying the trends in development of the history of library construction. The author determines that the research works on library construction in the USSR republics prevail in the studies on the history of librarianship. Research works on the history of library construction in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine dominate among them. Since the 1990s, the vector has shifted to the study of library construction in certain regions, areas and Autonomous republics of Russia. The regions of greatest interest are Siberia and the Urals, as well as Tatarstan, Bashkiria and Orenburg region. In chronological terms, the most studies are devoted to the history of Soviet library construction. In addition to comprehensive research studies, the works on the history of formation and development of particular library technologies — such as creation of collections, book description and library services — occupy a definite place. The history of library education is of considerable interest to the experts. The researchers studied the history of library science in sufficient detail.The author noted that there formed the central and regional schools in the field of history of librarianship. Moscow and St. Petersburg schools occupy the main place among them.The author determined that the lack of synthetic, comprehensive scientific research in the area of source studies, archaeography and historiography of the history of librarianship is the main drawback hindering the development of the history of librarianship. The article notes that without these studies it is impossible to conduct the generalized research covering the history of the domestic librarianship from its origin to the present time. The article continues the earlier studies.