Russian Library Research Articles

That Savage Gaze: Wolves in the Nineteenth-Century Russian Imagination by Ian M. Helfant (review)

SEER, 97, 3, JULY 2019 538 allusive, and also emotionally persuasive. In commenting on Batiushkov’s adaptations, Professor France proves an expert guide on their closeness to originals as reworkings or translations; and on a larger scale France’s treatment of literary culture in the period deserves to be appreciated on its own terms as a refresher course rather than the dernier cri in scholarship. Graduate students and scholars in the period will inevitably turn to the more specialized studies of, for example, Igor´ Pil´shchikov on Batiushkov’s Italian influences, Mariia Maiofis on Arzamas, Oleg Proskurin on literary debates, and probably Lotman and Uspenskii on linguistic controversies. The translations of shorter poems are often equimetrical and also reproduce rhyme, adding to the brio. The longer poems are rendered with a grace and clarity that takes them beyond the standard of cribs. Comments on form supplement translation helpfully. Nothing, one imagines, could work better in classes on Russian poetry of the Pushkin period. The Russian Library series is working wonders to bring to readers of English new voices as well as classics newly rendered. St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford Andrew Kahn Helfant, Ian M. That Savage Gaze: Wolves in the Nineteenth-Century Russian Imagination. The Unknown Nineteenth Century. Academic Studies Press, Boston, MA, 2018. xxvi + 174 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $99.00. A 1994 US government document, The Reintroduction of Gray Wolves to Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho, contains an interesting correspondence between an American ecologist, querying the accuracy of Russian anti-wolf research cited by an objector to the Yellowstone project, and Professor Bibikov, a wolf specialist at Moscow’s Academy of Sciences. Bibikov responds that the case against wolves is much exaggerated and largely based on speculation, or spurious research presented in Russian and Soviet hunting magazines. That Savage Gaze, Ian Helfant’s study of changing Russian cultural perceptions of the wolf between 1861 and 1917, discusses wolves in literary fiction by Tolstoi, Chekhov and others; but its great strength is its analysis of that much-maligned yet widely influential genre of hunting magazines and popular science. Throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, the volchii vopros, or ‘wolf question’, was debated from different social perspectives in hunting societies and their journals, individual hunters’ memoirs and zoological treatises. Helfant’s assimilation and analysis of this diversity of sources is a triumph of archival research, which goes far to alleviate the lack of systematic data on Russian wolf populations lamented REVIEWS 539 in his Introduction. The wolf was a symbol of Russian strength and ferocity; hunting and killing it was the ultimate rite of masculinity. Conversely, the wolf’s persistence also symbolized economic backwardness; 1873 statistics from Russia’s Ministry of the Interior suggested that lupine depredations on livestock and game were costing the Russian economy fifty million rubles annually, not to mention the hundred or so peasants devoured every year. Helfant argues that, despite this conflict, both fictional interpretations and legal and scientific literature about the wolf expressed increasing empathy with their subject (the 1865 foundation of the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals [RSPA] was a milestone in this journey). That Savage Gaze never strays far from Tolstoi. It opens with an analysis of the famous Rostov wolf hunt from War and Peace and turns in its final chapter to an 1890 essay, ‘A Wicked Pastime’ by Tolstoi’s protégé Vladimir Chertkov, describing a moral epiphany during a wolf hunt. Other wolffriendly authors discussed by Helfant include Chekhov (twice), Boris Zaitsev and Lidiia Zinovieva-Annibal; each story is examined in the context of wider literature on the same aspect of wolf ecology. The hunting scenes in War and Peace, when re-read beside memoirs by obscurer authors as well as accounts from contemporary hunting journals, reveal an entire lost economy and vocabulary of wolf-hunting based around borzoi packs, which finally became financially unsustainable towards the end of the century. Chief huntsmen, often more skilled than their masters, were at the top of the hunt hierarchy. (In his conclusion, Helfant reminds us of the dark side of this hunting-dominated society by citing Ivan Karamazov’s anecdote of the little...

NATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION AND LIBRARY ACQUISITION. PART ONE. MATERIAL AND ELECTRONIC ACQUISITION BUDGETS IN RUSSIA

Introduction. Electronic acquisition budgets are indicators of the information supply of research and education in the organization and affect its research output. The national level subscription to the global citation indexes Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus and the Freedom Collection of Elsevier released 70% of eleсtronic acquisition expenditures in the Russian libraries. The article studies the effect of the state-funded national subscription on the structure and temporal dynamics of material and electronic acquisition budgets in the Russian libraries.Materials and Methods. Materials comprise results of the data processing of the surveys on acquisition budgets in 2012–2018 and published results of the international surveys. Following our previous studies, we analyzed three main reference groups: universities (with a separate group of the Russian leading universities), research institutions and public libraries. For the purpose of this study, we created additional sub-groups of leading institutions (centers of excellence) in each reference group. From the survey data we calculated the average unit costs (both of the material and electronic acquisition budgets) in each reference group/sub-group. We also calculated relative shares of electronic and print resources in the library material budgets.Results. Since 2016, the material budgets of Russian libraries have grown after the fall caused by the economic crisis in 2014. The state-funded national subscription to the global citation indexes and the Freedom Collection of Elsevier resulted in the 2–4 times decrease in material and electronic acquisition budgets of the centers of excellence in each reference group.Discussion and Conclusions. For the first time, our study revealed the negative effect of the state-funded national subscription on the material and acquisition budgets in Russian organizations. We registered a decrease in the material budgets of the major Russian public and scientific libraries and universities.

NATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION AND LIBRARY ACQUISITION. PART TWO. THE PRINT AND ELECTRONIC BOOK ACQUISITION IN RUSSIA. STRUCTURE OF RUSSIAN MARKETS OF SCHOLARLY INFORMATION

Introduction. The national-level subscription to the global citation indexes Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus and the Freedom Collection of Elsevier released 70% of the electronic acquisition expenditures in the Russian libraries. The article aims at the analysis of the changes in the scope and structure of the book and electronic/print book acquisition budgets in the Russian libraries upon the state-funded national subscription. The article studies changes in the structure of the Russian markets of scholarly information broken in different reference groups.Materials and Methods. The article employs statistical analysis of the survey results. Materials comprise results of the data processing of the Russian surveys on the acquisition budgets in 2016–2018 and published results of the international surveys. We analyze three main reference groups and four sub-groups of the Russian institutions. Results obtained in Russia are compared with the results for American academics.Results. Our findings show that the acquisition budgets of Russian institutions demonstrate a shift towards the book and print book acquisition. Both trends differ from the international ones and the 2022 forecasts of the American libraries. The markets of electronic scholarly information show continuous concentration to the segment of universities. In 2018, relative shares of the university segment of the markets of electronic resources and electronic books made correspondingly 94% and 99%. In the electronic book market, the share of the reference group of the universities of the 5/100 project increased from 24% to 32%, whereas the share of two national universities shrank from 24% to 14%.Discussion and Conclusions. The results obtained probably indicate the effect of the national subscription on the library acquisition. The loss in the market positions of the group of Russian national universities can change leaders in the field of research output.

Towards Building Strong LIS Education: a View of Russian Researchers

The article aims to analyze the white paper prepared by an IFLA BSLISE Working Group in August 2018 — “Building Strong Library and Information Science Education: A Call to Global and Local Action”. The white paper was based on an international online survey, conducted in the spring of 2017, which had examined LIS qualification and certification requirements; the definition and meaning of a library and information science (LIS) “professional”; and agencies tasked with determining professional entry requirements.The article consistently reviews sections of the white paper, describes most important issues related to the current state of LIS education worldwide, quality assurance and internationalization of LIS programs, the impact of professional development and continuing education on LIS professionals. The action plan developed by the IFLA Working Group identifies most critical areas that require increased attention of the international professional community. It includes actions for the IFLA Working Group to undertake in 2018—2021.Findings of the international online survey and the white paper are of interest to the Russian professional community, especially to higher education institutions of culture that offer LIS programs (in Russia — “Library and Information Science activity”) at undergraduate and graduate levels.Having studied the white paper, the authors come to the conclusion that Russian experience in LIS education and training is unknown to foreign specialists. In order to solve this problem, the article offers recommendations: to develop a database gathering information about Russian LIS schools for posting it on the Russian Library Association website, to collect information about Russian LIS programs for posting it on the international resource “LIS Education Map”, etc.

The National and University Library of Iceland 200th Anniversary

The National and University Library of Iceland (Landsbókasafn Íslands — Háskólabókasafn) celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2018. The purpose of the review is to acquaint Russian library specialists with the history of this institution and to show its role in the preservation and promotion of the national cultural heritage. The author considers the main stages of development of the National and University Library of Iceland (NULI): from the establishment of the Icelandic Provincial Library in Reykjavík in 1818 (in 1881 it was renamed to the National Library of Iceland) to its merger with the University Library in 1994. The main sources of the study are the articles of foreign, primarily Icelandic, researchers on the activities, holdings and electronic collections of NULI, published in the late 1990s — 2010s. The author notes the contribution of Jón Árnason (1819—1898), the famous Icelandic researcher-folklorist and the first national librarian, who headed the library for about 40 years, in the development of the institution’s structure and stocks. The paper characterizes the modern organizational and management structure of NULI, composition of collections (including the Manuscript Department and the Icelandic Department), the system of library and bibliographic services. The author emphasizes the role of the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík as the main repository and centre for the study of Icelandic manuscripts. The institute conducts the intensive work on search for medieval Icelandic documents in the libraries and archives of other states and the digital reconstruction of scattered collections. The article reveals the work of NULI on opening of its holdings and creation of digital collections (“Collection of historical maps of Iceland”, “Digital library of medieval Icelandic manuscripts”, “Digital library of Icelandic Newspapers and magazines”, “Collection of old books of Iceland”, etc.). The author draws particular attention to the activities of the Consortium of Icelandic Libraries led by NULI to create a Unified Information and Library Space for the country and concludes on the significant contribution of NULI to the promotion and popularization of the national cultural heritage of the Northern state.

A talented scholar and pedagogue (On the 90-th anniversary of Gertuda Gedrimovich)

The paper is devoted to anniversary of the talented scientist and the teacher G.V. Gedrimovich (St. Petersburg), the outstanding representative of the Leningrad school of sciences. Professional skills of G.V. Gedrimovich were formed in National Library of Russia named after M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Its teaching activity was connected with the Leningrad State Institute of Culture named after N.K. Krupskaya for many years. G.V. Gedrimovich was developer of the major training course "Bibliography of Technical Literature", she took active part in formation of the Leningrad school of studying documentary. In scientific community G.V. Gedrimovich is known as the talented mentor of young scientists. Under her management Master's theses from many institutes of culture and libraries of Russia and abroad are defended. G.V. Gedrimovich actively works in the system of professional development of library staff. It is one of the most authoritative authors of the collection "Technical Libraries of the USSR" (then "Scientific and technical libraries"), the initiator of a practical work for employees of libraries. Recently, G.V. Gedrimovich develops information maintenance of marketing activity of the enterprises, her efforts are directed to formation of information culture of experts in the field of management.

Konstantin Batyushkov; presented and translated by Peter France. Writings from the Golden Age of Russian poetry

The English-language project Russian Library [ Russkaya biblioteka ] presents a book devoted to the life and work of Konstantin N. Batyushkov (1787—1855): a poet, writer, literary and art critic, translator, and member of the Arzamas literary society. The book is introduced and translated by Peter France (b. 1935), Professor Emeritus and Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh, fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His idea of Batyushkov was largely shaped by the scholars Vyacheslav Koshelev and Ilya Serman. The review speaks about the author’s very thorough approach, his skillful translations of Batyushkov’s poems, letters, and prose, expertly woven into the story of the poet’s life; a broad, European, context for analysis of Batyushkov and his time, and an authentic English sound of his poems.

The First Library Session of the People’s Commissariat of Education in Moscow: Continuity and New Challenges

Based on the archival documents of the Russian State Library (RGB), the article studies the questions on the situation with librarianship in Russia before the October Revolution of 1917 and in the early post-revolutionary years. Introduction of the new sources and the new interpretation of the continuity and interaction of specialists after the Revolution determine the scientific novelty of the study. The source base of the research are the materials of the First All-Russian Congress on Librarianship of 1911 and the First Library Session of the People’s Commissariat of Education in 1919. For the first time the article introduces into scientific circulation the bulk of the materials of the First Library Session, not published in full and stored in the Archive of the Russian State Library. Despite the fundamental changes in life associated with social processes after the October Revolution, practical experience accumulated by libraries in pre-revolutionary times within the Russian Empire, as well as its theoretical understanding became largely the basis for the new organization of librarianship. Evaluation of the development of librarianship in Russia and the need for radical changes in librarianship were formulated at the Congress of 1911. Thanks to the active participation of librarians and book experts in the discussion of the structure of the librarianship, many historical shortcomings of the old system have received professional and competent solution. The dialogue of the new government with the old personnel facilitated this process. The Bolshevik leadership duly appreciated professionalism of the library staff and largely used their suggestions made at the First Library Session, which became the basis for the construction of library network in the country and organization of professional development training. The leadership of the People’s Commissariat of Education took over the establishment of ideological control over the activities of libraries, leaving the practical work under the supervision of employees of these institutions. The author concludes that the subsequent success of the development of librarianship in the USSR demonstrated the correctness of the developed plan, built on the opinion of professionals and created by them in the main features.

Digital Copies of Bibliographic Publications in the Structure of Information Resources of Federal National Libraries

Modern libraries have considerable information resources. Digital copies of publications, including bibliographic ones, are an integral part of information resources. The author studies the activity of the Russian libraries of Federal level on creation of digital copies of bibliographic editions, basing on the own library holdings. There are three national libraries — the Russian State Library, the National Library of Russia and the Presidential Library named after B. Yeltsin. The purpose of the study is to analyse the array of digitized bibliographic publications and to identify the place of digital copies of bibliographic publications in the information resources of the national libraries. The author considers the content of the electronic catalogues of these libraries by entering the same type of request. The article presents the results of study of the volume and content of electronic catalogues, obtained by the method of bibliographic keyword search. The author analysed the array of digital copies of bibliographic publications on various parameters — chronological coverage of digitized documents; language features; terms of access to electronic documents. The author notes that the priority is now given to the digitization of publications in the national language. The article presents the types of access to digital copies of bibliographic publications from the user’s point of view. The author considers the statistical data on the availability of digital copies of bibliographic publications in the collections of electronic documents and the presence of special electronic collections. The emphasis is made on the study of open access to digitized documents. The study revealed that the volume of digital copies of bibliographic publications in the national libraries is very small for the implementation of their inherent scientific and educational function; the access to bibliographic information resources is mostly limited. The author concludes that the level of availability does not meet expectations of the user; and Russian libraries should develop their activities to expand open access to bibliographic information resources.

Тамбовская публичная библиотека как элемент провинциальной культурной среды

The relevance of the study is due to the need to fill the historiographical gap in the study of public libraries activities of pre-revolutionary Russia as an element of the provincial cultural environment. We consider formation and activities history of Tambov public library (opened in the city of Tambov in 1833). Novelty of the work is the introduction of previously unused historical sources in the characteristic of public libraries. The subject of the study are staffing table features, use pattern of the fund, ways of functioning of the stock company in public library, specifics of shares issue and disposition, social composition of readers. An important element of the study is the research of Tambov public library decline problems in post-reform time, reasons for the lack of material resources and attempts to transfer institution to the balance of the Tambov city budget. We note the role of private initiative in the arrangement of library at different stages of its development. We assess the books catalogues published at the institution which are one of the first printed bibliographies of public libraries in Russia. In the framework of literary preferences of library users study, we consider the assessments of the gymnasium director and Tambov Seminary rector, whose tasks included supervision of students’ reading and librarians’ implementation of circulars and decrees of public education minister. Theoretical and concrete historical analysis of Tambov public library allowed to draw conclusions about the significant impact of the library institution on the local cultural environment. We emphasize that the formation of library brought together the structure of provincial society, contributed to the qualitative social and cultural transformations of local population.

City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya

Reviewed by: City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya Svetlana Grenier CITY FOLK AND COUNTRY FOLK, by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, translater from Russian by Nora Seligman Favorov. Russian Library. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. 272 pp. $30.00 cloth; $14.95 paper; $13.99 ebook. Nora Seligman Favorov, Hilde Hoogenboom, and Columbia University Press are to be commended for bringing us this delightful novel from 1860s Russia. Sofia Khvoshchinskaya's powers of observation, her light touch, ironic tone, and representations of down-to-earth human goodness are reminiscent of Jane Austen. Favorov's translation adroitly captures the sparkling humor and sophisticated irony of the original, and Hoogenboom's erudite introduction, providing biographical detail on the author and an extensive bibliography, firmly sets the novel in its historical and literary context. Sofia Khvoshchinskaya (1824-1865), who published under the masculine pen name Iv. Vesenev, was the middle sister in a trio that has [End Page 238] been considered a Russian counterpart to the Brontës. Her elder sister Nadezhda (1822-1889) was famous and sought-after in the second half of the nineteenth century as the author V. Krestovsky, and the less well-known Praskovia (1828-1916) printed her works also under a pseudonym, albeit as the feminine S. Zimarova. All three Khvoshchinskaya sisters contributed to the major journals of the time and were accomplished artists, who spent most of their life in the provincial capital of Ryazan. Before her death at the age of forty-one, Sofia instructed Nadezhda not to write about her or republish her work, which is why she has remained relatively unknown. Nadezhda's story of a young woman's quest for independence, The Boarding-School Girl (Pansīonerka, 1861), was published in an English translation by Karen Rosneck in 2000. The very different City Folk and Country Folk (Gorodskie i derevenskie, 1862) is a welcome addition to the still sparse list of translated works by nineteenth-century Russian women. It significantly adds to our idea of the diversity of their writing styles and world views, and it provides a new and refreshing perspective on the provincial Russia we know from Ivan Turgenev's novels such as Fathers and Sons (1867; Ottsy i deti, 1862), written almost simultaneously to City Folk and Country Folk. Khvoshchinskaya's novel radically breaks with several traditions prevalent in male-authored Russian literature and reinterprets a few others. First, the central character is not a man, nor even an exceptional young woman, but Nastasya Ivanovna Chulkova, a fifty-five-year-old widow and a small-time landowner. Second, although Nastasya has a seventeen-year-old daughter, Olenka, there is no romance plot to speak of in the novel. Third, Olenka, unlike a typical Russian heroine, is an average high-spirited girl—not a romantic dreamer and voracious reader, like Alexander Pushkin's Tatyana in Eugene Onegin (1936; Evgeniĭ Onegin, 1833), or an idealist looking for ways to make a difference in the world, in the mold of Turgenev's Elena Stakhova in On the Eve (1895; Nakanune, 1859). Olenka dislikes reading and studying; she is thoroughly average, intellectually speaking. At the same time, she is observant and quick to discover the ridiculous side of characters and situations. What is more, she does not let others order her and her mother around. One wonders if the author meant her as a polemical response to Pushkin's Olga, Tatyana's sister. The novel introduces Khvoshchinskaya's satirical take on the superfluous man, a perennial Russian literary archetype found in the novels of such authors as Alexander Herzen and Turgenev, who invariably considers himself far superior to all of the surrounding "undeveloped" Russians. In City Folk and Country Folk, Mr. Ovcharov, who graduated from Moscow University and regularly travels to Europe, thinks of himself as a progressive intellectual and is eager to share his ideas with supposedly backward provincials and readers in the capitals alike (he sends his stream-of-consciousness [End Page 239] notes to journals, and they sometimes get published). In a typical plot, the superfluous man arrives in the provinces where, in the process of spreading his novel ideas and enlightening the "natives," he manages to attract a young woman...

Aerial seeding of forests in Russia: A selected literature analysis

The study is intended for international readers or those unable to read Russian. Information search was carried out in Russian-language databases (Russian libraries and ELibrary.ru) and English-language databases. . Currently, there are a large number of sites in the Russian forests that need to be restored. For many of them, reforestation by ground-based seeding or planting is inefficient or not available. Sowing forest from the air in Russia has more than half a century of history. The results of retrospective analysis show that the choice of the reforestation method depends on the site characteristics and the level of negative environmental impact. Generally, the cost of aerial seeding on such sites with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is lower compared to the use of manned aerial vehicles (MAV). This study will aid in the planning of new forestry experiments to study reforestation with the assistance of natural reforestation in Russia. The study will enable correct plant propagation protocols for sustainable forest management. However, many questions remained unresolved: what types of UAV and sowing apparatus to use; how to position the UAV under a forest canopy?

Libraries polycultural activities: terminological aspects

The libraries polycultural activities are connected with their work in the polycultural environment. The article deals with the terminology used by libraries for this activities, defines these terms. It reveals reasons for the multicultural librarianship appearance in Europe and creation of IFLA Section «Library services to multicultural populations». The author shows definitions of «multiculturalism» and «multicultural library services» given by the International Guidelines «Library services to multicultural communities»; the difference between the conditions of creation and development of multicultural library services in Europe and the Russian libraries work in the polycultural environment. The paper represents a comparative analysis of such definitions as «multicultural» and «polycultural» by the academic Russian environment and English dictionaries. The author concludes that in our country it would be more correct to use the term «polycultural», which involves the interaction of cultures, unlike the term multicultural meaning the existence of several cultures in a society. That’s why the author speaks about the polycultural activities of Russain libraries, or about their activities in the polycultural environment aimed at interaction and mutual influence of cultures.

Electronic Publications on Culture and Art in Russian Libraries (Based on the Materials of All-Russian Competitions)

Since 2004, the Russian State Library has organized all-Russian competitions of library electronic products on culture and art. In total, during six competitions, about 100 electronic publications has been presented, mainly by public libraries of regio­nal and municipal levels, as well as by federal, special and university libraries.Analysis of the competitions’ materials allows to say that the libraries of Russia produce roughly the same number of network and local electronic publications, while the share of network publications is gradually increasing; in addition to the original editions, deri­vatives are published; there are few updated electro­nic publications, although they are very convenient for online distribution. In content, there are information publications devoted to the most vivid manifestations of national and regional culture and contribu­ting to its preservation and development. Professional literature is provided to help specialists of libraries and other institutions of culture and art.Evaluation of the competitions’ electronic publications was carried out according to the following criteria: quality of content, compliance with the requirements for publications, design, functionality and technical characteristics. According to these criteria, more than half of the electronic publications parti­cipating in the 6th competition received average and high scores, which indicates a sufficiently high qua­lity of the electronic publications of libraries. Some publications received low scores mainly due to errors in the design and weak functionality.The main conclusion: libraries have occupied a stable niche in electronic publishing.

Paradigm Shift: Libraries in the Context of Digital Humanities (Foreign Experience)

The article analyzes the new status of Western libraries within the framework of Di­gital Humanities (DH), a volumetric trend coup­led with a radical change in the existing scienti­fic para­digm. The concept of DH, connected with the use of the methods of computer-aided text ana­lysis, processing of large data sets, digital mapping and 3D modeling in historical, linguistic and cultu­ral studies, affected libraries in the whole range of their inherent functions: custodians of cultu­ral heritage, providers of scientific communication, and centers for know­ledge organization and dissemination.The article aims to compensate the lack of publications, existing in Russian library science, both on the conceptual grounds and the practice of productive cooperation of libraries and DH-projects. The author reveals the content of the cardinal reform of the essence of library work under the auspices of digital science (e-science), associated with the growing complexity of the information environment, the large amounts of heterogeneous data, the interactive potential of modern information and communication technologies, and the personalization of user interfaces. The article classifies the types of cooperation between libraries and DH-projects, reducible to three main models: service, laboratory and network. The range of services provided by libraries to DH-project developers is analyzed: from initial consulting, access to electronic storage infrastructure, management of digital projects, finding grants and applying for them, to promotion, marketing and professional computer assistance.The article presents positive examples of library rebranding as a place for avant-garde scientific research, synergy of methods and research strategies for exact and human sciences. The list of responsibi­lities of library DH-centers is considered: building digital collections for scientific or educational purposes; creating tools for databases identification, formation, and analysis; management of research process, support of websites, digital publication and storage of research results; organization of training in the field of DH, creation of lecture courses and programs, organization of seminars and conferen­ces, cooperation with similar structural units of other institutions.

Archive of the Karatygin family: professional publications and handwritten materials

The authors draw attention of the professional community to the professional experience of the Karatygin family with the documents covering one hundred years of Russian sci-tech and special libraries. The quantitative data on professional publications and manuscripts by the Karatygins family donated to the Russian State Library are given.The Karatygins archive is the most significant collection acquired by the RSL specialized department in the recent years. It has compiled everything related to the development of sci-tech and special libraries, from general regulative documents, stenographs and All-Union conferences minutes, typical provisions and library rules to the reports of real regional special libraries. Research papers, statistical and methodological materials, learning programs, lectures and other documents are also included. The archive is of interest to researchers investigating into the history of special and sci-tech libraries, and the personal contribution of Fedor and Tatiana Karatygin into the development of sci-tech libraries and the library education in the country.

Historical role of university libraries as cultural and educational center

The need for studies to analyze the evolution of university libraries at the various historical stages is substantiated. The authors identify three periods when the library role was changing radically due to the changes in ideology and social demands. The authors explore the first period in detail and point to the narrative character of most publications on the library history lacking analysis of their humanitarian origins. The authors argue that, to conceptualize academic libraries mission at the present time, it is necessary to understand the university library mission from the historical perspective. They emphasize that cultural and educational activitiestoday is viewed in the context of personal socialization, or student’s social adaptation while the vector of information space development calls for conceptualization of the libraries’ humanitarian mission.The authors argue that, to understand a university library mission and, speaking wider – an education humanitarian principle we have to turn to historical and philosophic essence of humanism and enlightenment at the earliest stage of Russian academic libraries of the late 18th – early 20th century.

Современные проблемы библиотечного менеджмента в России

Современные проблемы библиотечного менеджмента в России

ONE-STOP ACCESS POINT TO LIBRARY RESOURCES: IN SEARCH OF REALIZATION

The problem of organizing on library site a united interface to search all the resources library provides for its users is considered. It is demonstrated, that patrons of a modern library often have to use several interfaces to search for traditional print resources, for items of its own digital library and for a number of licensed resources on their own platforms.The problem of organizing on library site a united interface to search all the resources library provides for its users is considered. It is demonstrated, that patrons of a modern library often have to use several interfaces to search for traditional print resources, for items of its own digital library and for a number of licensed resources on their own platforms.The problem of including local publishers resources in global discovery index is stressed as well as inability to tune knowledge base on open access articles level in hybrid journals. The main conclusion is: Russian research libraries, which provide access to dozens of licensed resource collections of international and foreign content providers, should use global discovery services to fulfill their mission.

Virtual Museum in the Library: Models and Technologies of Creation

The article describes the history of creation of virtual museums (VM) in global Internet space. The author considers the research areas of this resource, including the phenomena of VM development; defines the aspects of VM existence (information, social, technical) and its main types, in particular, representation of a real Museum and a virtual Museum existing only in the Web-space, and VM as an effective PR-tool. The paper presents the results of monitoring of Russian and some foreign virtual museums in libraries and describes their current state. The main specific features of the museums in the Russian libraries are the original object of exposure (book) and additional information materials (bibliography, alphabetical index, search system, etc.). Information content of the VM is mainly created basing on free programs and with minimal use of multimedia technologies; communication links to Web 2.0 services are weak. The main advantages of VM in the foreign libraries are simplicity of collections presentation and navigation through them, as well as aesthetics and dynamism, achieved by the use of original Web design (beautiful typography, sliders, tile (block) interfaces, etc.). Further development of memorial space of Russian libraries and creation of VM require theoretical study of the issue, namely the modeling of this resource. Analysis of scientific publications shows that there are different approaches to VM modeling, such as functional (educational, information, marketing models), complex (complex hardware — software system) and structural (structural model, including the following blocks: collections, library, exhibition, lecture and reference). Priority approach to the modeling of library VM at the stage of changing technological paradigm can be the technological one, which allows to reveal the set of the given resource properties, the process of the model design, consisting of the following blocks: resource, software and technology, preparation of objects for exhibiting, resource promotion, educational, cultural-educational and analytical.