The article is devoted to organizing the work of the USSR Academy of Sciences (AS) libraries in the 1930s, while creating a network of scientific branches and bases of AS in the country regions. The main goal of the created library system was to provide scientists working far from Moscow and Leningrad with scientific publications according with the specialization of newly created scientific institutions. The article attempts to recall how the expansion of the system of academic libraries in the USSR has started, and provides real data on their work. The authors overview the academic organizations created on the periphery, describes the processes of acquisitions and methodological management of libraries of branches and bases of the USSR Academy of Sciences.The principles of formation of science library network proved to be effective and the system of academic libraries expanded successfully for decades. The factual base of the article were the documents found in the archives of the Library of Natural Sciences RAS, in the Moscow and St. Petersburg Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in some regional archives and materials available on the Internet sites. The authors used a general scientific methodology, applying source study, archaeographic and analytical-synthetic methods of working with archival documents.

The article is devoted to organizing the work of the USSR Academy of Sciences (AS) libraries in the 1930s, while creating a network of scientific branches and bases of AS in the country regions. The main goal of the created library system was to provide scientists working far from Moscow and Leningrad with scientific publications according with the specialization of newly created scientific institutions. The article attempts to recall how the expansion of the system of academic libraries in the USSR has started, and provides real data on their work. The authors overview the academic organizations created on the periphery, describes the processes of acquisitions and methodological management of libraries of branches and bases of the USSR Academy of Sciences.The principles of formation of science library network proved to be effective and the system of academic libraries expanded successfully for decades. The factual base of the article were the documents found in the archives of the Library of Natural Sciences RAS, in the Moscow and St. Petersburg Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in some regional archives and materials available on the Internet sites. The authors used a general scientific methodology, applying source study, archaeographic and analytical-synthetic methods of working with archival documents.

In the context of the active development of information and communication technologies and a changing society in the XXI century, it becomes relevant to comprehend the experience accumulated by the scientific libraries of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which have experienced serious organizational and structural transformations that affect the formation of their ideological and resource base, the construction of adequate models for the organization, preservation, use and promotion of their resources.  The article objective is to present the history of forming scientific institution libraries in Siberia and the Far East, emerging and developing the library system of a department of the USSR Academy of Sciences – the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences – Russian Academy of Sciences (SB USSR AS and SB RAS) in 1920–2020 to determine further trends in their activities. To carry out the work, the author used such techniques as statistic, system and factor analysis, modeling, forecasting. The main tasks of the library system of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (as well as other libraries of RAS) were to provide information for scientists and specialists of research institutions and preserve the historical, cultural and scientific heritage of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Disintegration of the network connections, the model destruction of centralizing the library community of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which has occurred recent years, required the development of new models of interaction between libraries and adjustments of their functions in the scientific and information space of the region. The authors represents reasoning about the trends in the further development of the libraries of RAS, SB RAS and SPSTL SB RAS as the central library of the system.

The study relevance is due to the anniversary of the writer (200th anniversary of his birth), the demand for his works among the residents of the Siberian-Far-Eastern region in the pre-revolutionary period, the importance of studying library funds to reconstruct the potential reading circle of the region's population.  Due to the lack of comprehensive studies of library collections of pre-revolutionary libraries in Siberia and the Far East, this article first considers the presence of works by A. F. Pisemsky in the libraries of the region in the late XIX - early XX centuries. The article objective is to identify the writer’s works in the libraries of the Siberian-Far Eastern region during this period. Tasks are to: 1) reconstruct the repertoire of the works by A. F. Pisemsky in the libraries of the region in the pre-revolutionary period; 2) calculate quantitative indicators of their availability; 3) identify lifetime editions of the writer in library collections.  The author applies the comparative analysis, statistical, chronological, source-based methods.  Information is given from 34 catalogs of pre-revolutionary libraries of Siberia. They reflect the funds of 24 libraries located in 4 provincial, 5 regional and 4 county centers of the region. The libraries of municipal public and local commercial and public meetings prevail among them, chosen as the most open and, thereby, most accessible for readers.  For the first time, quantitative indicators of the presence of the works of A. F. Pisemsky in Siberian and Far Eastern libraries in the pre-revolutionary period were calculated and analyzed. The study results show that many of them had works by the writer during the period under review. Their funds included most of the famous works of this author. The most frequently found publications have been identified, as well as publishers whose products were presented in the libraries of the region.  The revealed data allow reconstructing partly library collections and the potential repertoire of reading of Siberian and Far Eastern residents in the late XIX – early XX centuries, clarifying and supplying the picture of library business in the region in the pre-revolutionary period. 

The relevance of the paper topic is due to the need to study the personnel situation in the methodological departments of the central libraries (CB) of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (RF) in the context of sociocultural transformations and active development of digital technologies. The article objective is to present to the library community the results of the study ”Personnel of methodologists in the central libraries of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation” and subsequent observations of the work of the methodological departments of the regions. It reflects the analysis results of quantitative, job, age composition of the personnel, the educational level of specialists, functional changes in methodological units, the system of advanced training of methodologists, and problems of demanded educational activities. The staffing potential level is quite high in most libraries, because methodologists belong to a promising age group of 55 years with higher education, broad competences, sufficient work experience, regularly updating their knowledge.  At the same time, the author concerns the staff small number and further reduction in its number, the lack of opportunities to fill vacancies, the uneven workload of methodologists by a number of supervised libraries, the lack of standards for staffing special structural units and methodology to determine them, as well as the optimal structure of units. Methodists perform a wide range of responsibilities, being universal specialists, competent on various issues. There is a complication and increase in the requirements for methodical activities. 97,9 % of methodologists have higher education, but their large part does not have a special library education. Methodists receive regular training, but there are virtually no special training courses for methodologists in the training system. The identified problems require solution at coordinating the efforts of the methodological centers and state support.

Many modern national libraries implement the model of a library open to any member of society. In conditions of rapid and pervasive development of digital technologies and the formation of the Internet information space, a website is an indispensable tool for ensuring the availability of the library, its information resources and services in the virtual space. The creation and use of websites to organize remote (virtual) services is one of the most significant activities of libraries. The article objective is to present and summarize the results of studying national library websites as a platform for remote user services. The Russian State Library researchers study websites of 24 national libraries in 22 countries as a part of investigating current state and prospects for development of the digitalization processes of public libraries. The researchers have identified main directions of remote services  (informing users about the library, its resources and services; ensuring the availability of library information resources; improving the comfort of using the library), and the range of remote services, which includes above dozen remote library and information services, as well as nearly the same number of additional digital services that increase the comfort of users. They proposed promising directions to develop remote services (information about library resources and services, consulting and training on using library resources, personalization of services), and the introduction of digital technologies (multimedia and augmented reality technologies). 

Revealing research fronts and detecting research priorities are one of the most significant problems in the science of science and scientific policy due to the crucial importance when planning research. Bibliometric approaches are the main tool when detecting research trends and fronts providing the basis for further expertise of research priority. To date, different approaches have been developed for research trends and fronts detection including analysis of scholarly output, citation analysis, and content analysis. The most spread is citation analysis and its variants, i.e., direct citation analysis, co-citation analysis, and bibliographic coupling. The paper discusses the main features of each method; describes current issues of detecting research fronts and setting of research priorities. The authors conclude that bibliometric approaches for detecting research fronts and research priorities are objective, especially when combining different forms of bibliometric analyses. Bibliometrics seems to be the most promising approach due to its flexibility and capability to be rapidly adapted to a dynamic scientific environment and new publication models. 

The author estimates the scientific and practical value of the theory of information resource studies presented in domestic and foreign publications by T. F. Berestova, Professor of Chelyabinsk State Institute of Culture.