In memory of Mikhail Nikolaevich Glazkov

Abstract

The author pays tribute to the late Professor Mikhail Glazkov (1966- 2025), Dr. Sc. in Pedagogy, prominent Russian historian of librarianship. He examines Glazkov’s contribution to the history of Soviet librarianship and national library policy, and its methodology. The general bibliometrical survey of Glazkov’s works is provided with the focus on systems analysis of Glazkov’s theoretical and methodological concepts of the history of national librarianship. The author points to the principle of scientificity and objectivity of historical studies as developed by the scholar. Mikhail Glazkov also contributed to overcoming of the theoretical and methodological crisis of the 1990-ies – early 2000-ies caused by political factors of 1960-2000-ies. The author argues that Glazkov’s approach toward reconstruction of Soviet librarianship as a social institution from the viewpoint of the government library policy is a promising one. M. N. Glazkov also contributed to the foundations of the post-Soviet librarianship history and suggested that the negative trends in librarianship of 1990-ies originated from the mid1980ies, and the starting point for post-Soviet librarianship studies were the “Regulations on librarianship in the USSR (1984).