The Library Dictation – All-Russian educational campaign: Dynamics and results (2019–2024)

Abstract

The author analyzes the results of the All-Russian educational campaign “The Library Dictation” for 2019–2024. The study is based on the campaign organized by Novosibirsk Regional Youth Library. It applies qualitative, quantitative and comparative analysis methods. The findings evidence on the tenfold increase in the number of participants (6,000 in 2024), with the coverage of 76 Russian regions. The author emphasizes that the contest has transformed from the youth into the intergenerational one. He specifies the most challenging tasks and provides the examples. The most difficult questions deal with the foreign library experiences and modern practices. The author offers recommendations for the project development: to adapt the content for different age groups, to exclude local speciality questions for the geographically extended audience, and to focus on the young professionals while keeping the project attractive for older age groups. Within the conceptual framework, the author recommends to generate the thesaurus of key competences for test programming, to implement the system of question cross-validation by extended expert team, and to introduce multilevel assessment system and test tasks for different proficiency levels.