Jubilee data of two Russian large academic libraries – The Library of Natural Sciences (LNS) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and State Public Scientific and Technological Library of the Siberian Branch (SPSTL SB) of the Russian Academy of Sciences – are good reasons for summing up the development of library systems which they head. The author shows the genetic bound between an academic library with science, and after a short excursus into the its history analysis, what the RAS libraries have got and lost during the last fifteen years, points out strategy and tactics of their development. It is shown, that «age-old» types of library activity – publishing, bibliographic, etc – are being transformed and diversified, and their appear new ones – that of experts and scientometrical. But their lacks comfortable information infrastructure, based on branches of knowledge: up to now within the informational and library system of RAS there is the information system based on territorial principle. The author supposes that RAS needs the union information net with branch subsystems.

The approach to the quality of library contacts from the viewpoint of the conception of personality relations (V. N. Mjasischev) and theory of activity (V. D. Nebylitsyn) is shown. Foreign theories of interpersonal relations.

Implementing new technologies in library practice allows automation all stages of users’ work both in the library and in the remote access. Remote users can get library services in a large measure as the readers that work within the library. One of the problems here is forming information re-quest. The results of investigation, started in the State Library of Russia in 2005, of the satisfaction degree of information and library services of readers using electronic catalog are  presented; possibilities of new services being implemented in libraries are described.

The resume of research activities of the department of Librarianship and theory of reading of St. Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts in 2005–2007 is analyzed. The staff of the department is described. The main trends of scientific work and methods of their realization in academic process and library practice are examined. Some perspective ways of scientific activities of the department are proposed

The article describes the technology, applicable in automated library systems and based on collaborative filtration, for forming recommendation lists.

It is proposed to use references in a scientist's articles as one of the possible characteristics of his information behavior. The analysis of the publications of researchers in the Institute of chemical kinetics and combustion during 2007 allowed to reveal priorities for publications, to determine the retrospective of information search in the theme under  investigation, to clear up «the geography» of the material, to consider the ratio of references on printed and electronic sources of information, etc.

The questions of the Russian language functioning and Russian text- book existing on the territory of modern Kazakhstan are considered. The problems connected wilt the determining the Russian language status in the Republic are shown. The analysis of text-book publishing in Russian and the order of text-books supply from Russia is given.

In the article one of the content aspects of synopsis of doctorate theses – investigation methods – is treated. The author offers his own variant of best presenting investigation methods in synopsis of theses, which is «a visiting car» of such type of a work. Such questions as the essence of methodological principles and their connection with investigation methods are as well considered. The question is put on the  specification of such methodological notion as «an approach».

The review is given of the viewpoints on the modern understanding of comparativistics and factors, actualizing such type of investigations. Its subject and main investigation methods are considered. The author analyses most notable international investigations and indicators in the field of education, culture, library activity adopted by the international community. They allow to make comparative investigations in all these directions. The logic of a modern comparative investigation is shown. It allows to reveal the reasons of social system development, to explain their transformation and interconnections due to situation change

Assessing the effectiveness of the library has been and remains an important aspect in making management decisions, planning and development as separate divisions, processes, services and library as a whole. In the current
context indicators such estimates are very diverse and widely applied in practice. Some approaches to measuring the efficiency of the library, identifying indicators and to modeling an integrated system of measurement are reviewed.

Data bases generated by the State Public Scientific-Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences are represented. Based on monitoring data of scientists and scholars information requirements the ways of data bases improvement are designated as the following: actualization the topic repertoire, determination of new approaches to information selection taking into account a modern level of automatized technologies development, optimization of technological schemes of the information space organization, elaboration of easier access to resources.

The foreign experience of patent and information service is analyzed. The perspectives of patent departments development in SPSTL SB RAS under the conditions of innovative activity in the region are considered.

The formation of expert assessment system based on Internet supposes enlisting the leading specialists to assess the proposals of the home book market, thus increasing the quality of acquisition in the library system of The library of natural sciences, providing awareness news to the researches and monitoring of their information needs.

A new adsorbent for maintaining air relative moisture in show-cases, boxes for deposits and containers for trans-porting library, museum and archive values is described. The results of testing this material in SPSTL SB RAS and the Institute of archeology and ethnography of RAS are discussed.

The collection Q.II.33 from the Tomsk collection in the Rare books and manuscripts department of SPSTL BS RAS includes the List of the Message on the Earth paradise by Novgorod archbishop Vassilij Kalika dated the XVII century. Due to textological features the List is close to archetype and belongs to archetype editorship. But the rest lists of the same editorship – Romanchenko 68 (Library of Academy of sciences) and Uvarov 1894 (898) (State historical museum), also dated XVII century, demonstrate their editors misunderstanding the essence of the problem discussed in the Message. This fact is due to the peculiarities of cultural situation in Russia in that period.

The collection of singing manuscripts in the Rare books and manuscripts department of SPSTL BS RAS, which is a unique collection of memorials of ancient Russian musical culture, is described.