Currently, the creation of strategic documents and the implementation of the action plan to achieve the goals and objectives set out in such documents is widespread among large business companies, both manufacturing and mining sectors, the retail sector, as well as elevated to the rank of mandatory for corporations with state participation, Federal state unitary Enterprises and a number of similar organizations. Such requirements are imposed on a number of sectors of the economy, and the cultural sector, where there are two documents of strategic goal – settingthe Basis of the state cultural policy and the Strategy of the state cultural policy, has not escaped this.

It is important that these strategic planning documents, which represent a whole body of normative legal acts defining the goals and directions of the country's development, are of significant legal significance, as they are approved by the Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation or by resolutions and orders of the Government of the Russian Federation, which, in particular, means that they are binding.

The article is devoted to the analysis of approaches to the definition of the role of libraries presented in various strategic documents of the Federal level, approved in recent years, which in a General sense can be considered clearly formulated "state order" for the implementation of which the activities of public libraries of the country should be focused in the coming years and in the long term.