INTERNATIONALIZATION AS A STRATEGY FOR ACADEMIC LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

According to publications of foreign library science specialists, the strategy of internationalization is the most successful experience of library and information service modernization today. In Ukrainian scientific discourse, the strategy of internationalization in librarianship is not separated and is not examined, while in other educational spheres it is described in detail. The goal of the article is the statement and foundation of main tasks and directions of internationalization of academic libraries and their correlation with the traditional functions of academic libraries. It is demonstrated that directions of library internationalization have to: a) support and help with solving tasks set by a higher educational institution during the process of internationalization; b) solve specific tasks connected with the development of library services and international library initiatives. The content of “internationalization” aspects of work, determined within the framework of set tasks, is disclosed by: 1) the development of library services; 2) the participation in international library initiatives, especially that are in regard to providing equal access to the information and ideas; 3) the providing of information requirements of foreign students and researchers; 4) the integration of scientific publications to the international scientific area. In conclusions it is stated that such approach to the library role understanding would allow to make them peculiar informational centers of the higher educational institution, where are concentrated not only outgoing, but also ingoing information flows, the intensity of which can be measured with the help of certain indicators – absolute, relative and quality indicators. On the ground of these indicators we can draw the conclusion about the internationalization of the higher educational institutions and convert the strategic targets into their quantitative dimension. Certain groups of indicators that are connected with strategy directions described in the article are distinguished. There are some of them: the number of languages of library resources; statistical measures of library website traffic; qualitative measures of implementation of international library standards into the work of the library; the number of open access journals in the university collection and on the library site; the number of information databases of scientific and technical information the university library provides the access to; the number of subscribers of the library resources; the representation of publications of scientists and scientific journals of the university, rating system indexes etc.