Levko Bykovskyi’s Training Concept of Library Specialists

Abstract

Problem statement. Modern Ukrainian society is changing as a result of irreversible demographic, intellectual and cultural losses. The tasks of reconstruction and development of the country cause new challenges for the educational, scientific and industrial sectors. Resistance to Russian expansion requires innovations in information activities too. The transformation of the public role of library institutions is observed. There is a need to transform libraries into modern socio-cultural institutions that fully meet today’s requirements of a society. The key to successful changes in the library industry is the improvement of its staffing and effective innovative management. This, in turn, requires a thorough analysis of the national and global experience of librarians.
 The purpose of the research is to study the curricula on book studies, bibliography and librarianship, which were used in Librarianship higher course for librarians at the Warsaw Public Library.
 The methodology of this study is based on a complex approach, that combines both general scientific and problem-specific methods. Among them there are methods of systematization, data processing, terminological analysis, generalization, as well as logical, descriptive, historical-genetic, and retrospective ones.
 The results. The curricula on book studies, bibliography and librarianship, used in Librarianship higher course for librarians at the Warsaw Public Library, are concluded according to a single principle. Each course contains a curriculum and a thorough list of literary sources, as well as methodological recommendations on the scientific organization of work, ergonomics, etc. The curricula are divided into content modules and thematic blocks. The authors assume that mastering the proposed curricula was a sufficient basis for the successful professional implementation of the course graduate.
 The scientific novelty of the study lies in a comprehensive study of the dynamics of the library field development and the librarians training experience with the aim of borrowing the best elements of it into the modern educational process and abandoning unsuccessful methods.
 The practical significance lies in the attempt to focus attention on the training curricula for librarians at the Warsaw Public Library, developed by scientists of the Ukrainian diaspora, who in the period of the 20-30s of the XX century were the leaders of the library industry, since in the Soviet Union bibliography, like a number of similar educational courses, were in decline.
 Conclusions. The analyzed brochure, despite its small volume, is quite informative. Its author emphasizes the need to write a textbook on library science and at the same time points out its practical significance for the scientific studies of graduate students, the effective work of librarians and their managers. In addition to the idea of librarians at that time, the brochure indirectly gives us information about the life and activities of Ukrainians in emigration, as well as the level of development of the centers of Ukrainianism, in particular in the city of Kalisz, illustrates the relations between the scientific communities of the Ukrainian diaspora and post-Soviet Ukraine. Any scientific papers containing extensive bibliographic lists serve as reference points for scientific research activities since, unfortunately, library funds suffer irreversible losses after the horrors of war.