SUBSCRIBERS TO PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE COST OF LIBRARY SERVICES IN UKRAINE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE XIX – EARLY XX CENTURY

Abstract

In the article by Viktor Sokolov entitled «Subscribers of public libraries and the value of library services in Ukraine in the mid XIX – early XX centuries» were described the formation and evolution of such a category of readers of public libraries as «subscriber». During the specified period were analyzed the formation of semantic features of the term «subscriber», features of social factors that influenced changes in his semantic shades, tendencies of their development and peculiarities of the use of this concept in library activity. In conjunction with the establishment and dynamics of payment for the cost of librarian services are proposed characteristics of subscribers of domestic public libraries.The purpose of the article is to characterize, analyze and generalize information about the functioning of such a category of readers as a «subscriber» in public libraries of Ukraine in the XIX – early XX centuries; disclose the specifics of the use of the term «subscriber» in library practice; descript the main socio-historical conditions that influenced the formation of the meaning of the term, as well as the study of the peculiarities of the formation and trends of the change in the value of library services in domestic public libraries of the investigated period. The author widely used both general scientific and special historical methods of research: chronological, historical-comparative, historical-typological, biographical methods, method of diachronic analysis, etc.V. Sokolov proposed the definition of the term «subscriber» based on studying the specifics of the use in public libraries of the notion of «subscriber» and reader characteristics of this category of readers. Subscriber is a kind of user of public libraries in the Russian Empire in the second half of the XVIII – in the beginning XX centuries, which was the main body of book readers whose representatives, as a rule, were distinguished by a constant interest in reading, a clear constant attendance at a library institution and the use of a book fund for a fee. Subscribers were called people who regularly came to the library and received certain editions for reading on the terms of the corresponding fee for library services (for a year, a half, a quarter, a month). That is, not all visitors to the library were its subscribers, for example, readers who bought a one-day subscription and took books home at the appropriate time, mainly, did not belong to the category of subscribers. Books and magazines subscribers used either in the reading room of the library or at home. Nonresident readers ordered publications under the printed catalog of the library, which were then sent by mail. The closest synonyms for the term «subscriber» on the semantic basis are the phrase «regular reader» or «owner of the subscription». It is determined that the semantic content of the term «subscriber» was formed in connection with the development of activities, primarily commercial libraries.In the Russian Empire and in the Soviet Union in the 1920s the cost of library services has always been differentiated and depended on the categories of readers, their financial status and social status. The fee for the use of library services reflected some social inequality and changed in line with socio-political and socio-economic changes in society. However, both in the Russian Empire and in Soviet times, there were free public libraries and different forms of provision of free library services for certain categories of subscribers. With the development of democratic relations, the funds of library libraries gradually became more and more accessible to readers of all social groups, and more and more developed free forms of library services. Accordingly, the term «subscriber», which characterized the peculiarities of payment for library services, gradually lost the meaning of its use and was increasingly replaced by the term «reader», while the term «subscriber» did not cease to be used in professional communication (approximately, until the first half of the 1930’s).