The landmark book on Nicholas Rubakin

Abstract

Review of the book: Stolyarov Yu. Rubakin revisited / Yury N. Stolyarov: Russian School Library Association ; Librarianship Department of the International Informatization Academy ; Russian State Library ; Research Center of Book Culture Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences ; National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). – Moscow : RUSLA, 2019. – 416 p., ill.The reviewer emphasizes the importance of the reviewed book, as Nicholas Rubakin’s work of researcher and educator, has not been studied comprehensively yet. The publication coincides with Rubakin’s 160-th anniversary. The reviewer characterizes the book structure and the contents of its five chapters: “The Life”, “The Foreign Native”, “The Focus of N. A. Rubakin’s Creative Interests”, “Bibliopsychological Portraits”, and “The Author of Integral Philosophy”.Yu. N. Stolyarov characterizes Nicholas Rubakin as a science communicator, expert of self-education and (kids) reading guidance and, most of all, as a founder of bibliopsychological theory. The reviewer examines the key works by Rubakin for each of the above-mentioned areas, e.g. “The secret of library work success”, “What the bibliological psychology is”, The Psychology of readers and books”, “Importance of the books”, “On the methodology of the book business”, “The book market in Soviet Russia and its psychology”. The reviewer makes a focus on Rubakin’s masterwork –“Among books” and on Stolyarov’s footnotes that expand the book text and reader knowledge, and points to the book design.