Today, there are 65 active monasteries in Switzerland that were founded before 1800. They include women’s and men’s convents of 13 different orders of the Roman Catholic Church. These monasteries preserve a significant part of the written cultural heritage (manuscripts and prints) in Switzerland. Almost all monasteries are facing great challenges because of today’s major social and structural changes, which also have an impact on the book heritage of religious communities. The project Handbook of Monastic Libraries in Switzerland intends to create a survey of the current state of Swiss monastic libraries. The articles of this handbook describe the scope, content, condition and challenges of all monastic libraries. Well-known abbeys such as Einsiedeln, Engelberg or Saint Maurice as well as a large number of smaller women’s monasteries with less renowned book collections will be covered. The handbook aims at raising awareness for the preservation of monastic book heritage among politicians and the public.

The paper will present first results from the work on the Handbook of Monastic Libraries in Switzerland and provide insight into actual conservation issues and research opportunities in Swiss monastic libraries.

The political and cultural integration of the vast Kazan region, annexed to the Moscow state in the middle of the XVI century, led to the formation of the Russian regional cultural environment and the organization of the Orthodox mission. The important factor in these processes was the distribution of Cyrillic handwritten and printed books. Kazan and Sviyazhsk became the centers of Russian book culture in the annexed lands, where monasteries and temples with rich libraries had already existed since the second half of the XVI century. The purpose of this study was to identify and characterize the products of the book-writing (Cyrillic) workshops of Kazan and Sviyazhsk of the XVII century. The article provides information about 24 manuscripts, including illuminated ones, identified in catalogs and collections of various scientific libraries, their content, scientific, religious and cultural significance. The names of professional scribes and drawing-artists who worked in Kazan, the names of the owners of the manuscripts are established. Summarizing the information on the identified manuscripts allows us coming to the conclusion about the systematic books rewriting in Kazan already at the beginning of the XVII century, to put forward assumptions about the existence of a bishop’s library, about the presence of book-rewriting workshops in the Kazan Zilant Uspensky and Trinity Feodorovsky monasteries and in the Sviyazhsky Trinity monastery

In the age of big data, small collections are often overlooked. Too numerically few to cause waves, the issues and problems that affect them are rarely addressed by cataloguing institutions. In the present paper, the author focuses on one such collection – holdings of Siberian Turkic materials at the British Library – to explore how homogenizing trends impact the cataloguing of these materials. The author concentrates particularly on aspects related to MARC21 requirements and authority files, and how these work to occlude the unique printing histories of Siberia’s indigenous Turkic languages. The author concludes that these trends may be overcome by treating the collections qualitatively through the creation of collection guides, addressing the inconsistencies in MARC21 and Library of Congress authority files, and outreach to and engagement with contemporary Siberian Turkic communities.

The article investigates insufficiently researched issues related to A. I. Klibanov’s book collection. The review of the detected autographs, exlibris and ownership stamps provides an opportunity to determine custodial history of books from both state libraries and personal collections, as well as to reveal unique information about relationships and cooperation between medieval scholars in the second half of the 20th century. The dedicatory inscriptions on the books differ in their length and originality; therefore, their significance as a source is directly proportional to how close a sender and a receiver were. Identification and description of bookplates and stamps in the study of the “Klibanovskaya” collection, still unknown from available reference books, will help in the study of other memorial book collections where such provenance marks can be found. The article also details the features of the formation of the foreign part of the A. I. Klibanov’s book collection. The foreign part of the memorial book collection, which is relatively small compared with the entire collection, can be divided into several thematic blocks: books with autographs donated by researchers dealing with similar scientific problems as the owner of the collection; multi-temporal books on historical and religious subjects, acquired by the owner; instances not related to the previous two blocks. The article identifies, systematizes and describes the inscriptions and ownership marks on the books of the collection of A. I. Klibanov.

This research focuses on Shanghai Library users’ demand for Russian literature of different literary periods. Method of sampling and questionnaire were applied for the study. Analyzing the online circulation records of Chinese translations of Russian literature in the main collection of Shanghai Library from 2016 to 2019 and providing an overview of reader demographics are two major tasks. As a typical example, the circulation records of 2019 are thoroughly examined. The aim of the study is to identify the level of demand for Russian literature at various times and the factors influencing the changing trend of demand. The results obtained from the research show that despite the large total number of visitors and the frequency of use of the main collection, the demand for Russian literature was relatively low, especially when compared with other foreign authors. Russian literature from the 19th century and Soviet literature are in the highest demand. Readers didn’t show an obvious interest in contemporary Russian authors. The demand for these three types of authors is clearly uneven. Russian-American writers, as a special group, are also popular choice of readers. The largest reader group consists of middle-aged women. Male readers have a more steadfast and clear preference for one particular author than female readers do. The demand for Russian literature in the library is influenced by such factors, as age and gender, the spread of culture through mass media and social networks, and reading promotion practices by libraries. These factors interact with each other.

Cooperation at the national and international levels is a promising direction of libraries’ activity. One of the modern forms of such cooperation is library consortia that have been created around the world since the 1960s. The activities of such library associations have been successfully carried out in Russia for many years, but for the more complete understanding of the such organizations’ work character, it is necessary to examine the foreign experience of library consortia creating. Considering the activities of the largest national, regional and international library consortia since the 1960s, one can find out the transformation of such institutions from organizations performing strictly defined functions, such as automating routine library processes or facilitating access to information and exchange of it, into a significant tool for strengthening cooperation in the field of librarianship and bibliography. The article presents the most common definitions of the term «library consortium», defines the main goals and objectives of such organizations, and considers the activities of the largest library consortia of the following types: consortia that unite libraries according to the technological principle and consortia uniting libraries of a certain type. The author pays attention to the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC), which is a special type of consortium – an association of associations.

 The article reflects the results of a local study of the human resources of libraries in music and art schools of St. Petersburg, conducted in 2020, assesses the current state of their human resources and suggests possible ways of its development. Libraries in children’s music and art schools (CMS/CAS) are an important participant in the system of additional pre-professional education of children, that’s why the quality of the work of specialists is an important factor in ensuring the quality of the educational process. It was found that the information about these libraries on the websites of the CMS/CAS, is given extremely rare, and it is not structured. Regulatory documents contain very little or no information at all about the tasks of the library, the functional responsibilities of librarians, let along their salaries. The staff is exclusively women; three-quarters of employees are over 50 years old; their work experience in libraries ranges from a minimum to several decades; only the third of employees have a higher library education, more than a half – the pedagogical one, that result in the quality of library activity. Only half of the employees is able to work on computer. Qualification categories to librarians are not assigned. All respondents need advanced training in basic library processes. In the current situation, the main way to develop the activities of the libraries in the CMS/CAS of St. Petersburg is to transform them into information and library centers for the arts similar to those created in school libraries, and to unite them into a network to overcome the disunity of the professional group of librarians of the CMS/CAS.

The purpose of the article is to present theoretical generalizations on library and information research as aspects of the development of information support for research and development: a classification of a complex of relevant works, products and services and a model that allows determining the level of development for each library based on its tasks and human resources. The methodological possibilities of the developed model are shown: it can be used for personnel training and for the organization of a new library at a research institute, research university under certain requirements.

The purpose of the study is to review the activities of French municipal public libraries in working with older age audiences; to make known to the Russian library community modern practical developments of foreign colleagues in this area. The article is based on the results of the analysis of the following documents: reports of the Ministry of Culture and Communications of France, National summaries of data on the activities of municipal libraries, research articles and dissertations on the topic of the older generation in the library. The article presents the system of the old age periodization by Serge Guerin (Serge Guérin), which is characteristic of France, and gives an idea of the image of the modern French pensioner. The importance of cooperation and partnership of libraries with volunteer associations is noted. The interesting experience of the association «Read and let others read» («Lire et faire lire»), which attracts retired teachers to cooperation with libraries, thereby helping older people feel needed by society and continue an active social life, is presented.

The Review on the Monograph «Scientific Researches in Libraries:
Topics, Organization, Presentation of Results»

The aim of the article is to reveal foreign Russian language publications as the main sources of the formation of the bibliographic repertoire of books in Russian published abroad, reflected in the bibliographic database «Books published in Russian abroad, 1927–1991», compiled by the staff of Research department of bibliography of Russian State Library. The specific features of the database and special cases associated with the requirements for the repertoire of the publications included in the database are characterized. Information on auxiliary indexes adjacent to the database, reflecting that of about the persons involved in book publications, keywords, geographic names and the names of organizations associated with publications is given. The main sources are outlined, within the framework of which the selection of the bibliographic repertoire corresponding to the topic of the main database is carried out: 1) editions of the Russian emigration circles in different countries; 2) editions of the socialist countries; 3) foreign editions. Each of the sources is considered and characterized, the specifics of the ways of organizing the publishing process, depending on each of them, are highlighted. Based on the requirements of the maximum possible practical verification of the material covered by the database de visu, the author considers the specifics of the search and analysis of the material, depending on a source of the bibliographic repertoire formation. The variety of bibliographic resources dictated by such specifics is noted, the variety of ways of referring to them by a bibliographer in his practical search and reflection of bibliographic material in the database.

The fundamental differences between the considered sources are highlighted. There are raised questions related to the quantitative ratio within the database of publications corresponding to the indicated sources of its formation.

The article examines the evolution of the modern genre of recommended bibliographic publications, which is clearly tracked in the publications of the Russian State Library (RSL). The author’s goal is to show how the signs that make the genre popular for modern cultural and educational activities have been formed and consolidated in the process of evolution. The relevance of the research is to identify the opportunities to use recommended bibliographic publications more effectively to promote a book to a reader. The popular biobibliographic essay has become an evolutionary pinnacle for two types of recommended bibliographic products. These are personal indexes, where information about a person is combined with information about literature (publications) plus a detailed review in the genre of «conversations about books». Both types of indexes go back to the list of recommended literature, with the creation of which in the 1920s the recommendation bibliographic activity of the RSL began. In the 1980s, in the RSL there appeared publications, which became the prototype of modern popular biobibliographic essays. The decisive influence on the formation of the genre of popular biobibliographic essay had «perestroika». The recommendation bibliography was actively engaged in navigation in the array of the most popular literature, And in parallel it turned to the little-known and hard-to-access literature. In both cases, new tasks appeared. Some authors had to be selected from the total number, while others, in fact, had to be introduced. A modern essay, accordingly, gives a comprehensive picture of life and work of the person to whom it is dedicated. It creates the image of a person, shows his (her) place in the cultural context, analyzes creativity in general, and characterizes specific book publications.

An important direction in the implementation of the functional activities of libraries at various levels is the coordination of bibliographic work and mandatory methodological support. The issues of coordination interactions are poorly covered in the professional press. For library science, information about the activities of domestic libraries in this area remains not only a source of information, but also an object of scientific study. The purpose of the article is to study and analyze the activities of the Russian State Library as a coordination center at the national (interlibrary) level. It is established that the 1960s–1980s were the period of the highest level of development of national coordination. The analysis of existing methodological and instructional documents made it possible to determine that the leading role in the complex of such products belongs to methodological recommendations. The study of published documents for the intended and reader purpose was carried out. The practical application of the recommendations by libraries made it possible to improve the processes of bibliographic service, optimize reference and bibliographic funds, develop common principles and approaches to the scientific processing of catalogs and card files. The influence of the Russian State Library on the interrelationships of libraries in the humanitarian branch allowed us to establish a stable stage of development of coordination based on the distribution of forces in optimal conditions for scientific activity. Basing on modern realities, it is necessary to study the existing experience and resume coordination cooperation at the Russian level.