Topical issues of dissertations’ references on architecture as an information resource to support research in architectural science

Abstract

Studying the architectural science bibliography has shown that during 150 years of its history few indices have been created, and recent decades almost all architectural bibliography has not gone beyond the framework of the nation-wide index «Chronicles of Book Chamber». This article examines the fundamental nature of bibliographic science for purposes of architectural research. The article objective is determining ways of architectural bibliography development and generating a unified database of architectural knowledge in the context of contemporary socio-economic and socio-cultural realities. It considers defended dissertations on specialty «Architecture»; describes information resources containing in their thesis structure on the subject area. Attention is focused on the distribution of defended dissertations by years, cities and thematic nests. The paper has revealed thesis devoted to the theory and history of foreign architecture. It emphasizes the need of further large-scale research with an analysis of the entire spectrum of human knowledge, which includes dissertations related to architectural science. The authors conclude: 1. There is no complete systematically presented unified catalog of dissertations on architecture, including resources of the Russian Book Chamber. 2. It is necessary to create such resource, which would satisfy the information needs of different groups of users.