The author reviews the history and development of the libraries of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society European branches, namely the Caucasusian, North-Western and South-Western. The library network of the Geographical Society branches supported local scientists and researchers in their studies. The libraries were established through the donations made by the members, other individuals and institutions. Apart from the donations, the library collections were developed through the book exchange. The branches’ own publishing practice facilitated the expansion of book exchange relations with other scientific institutions. The European branches of the Geographical Society published periodicals and continuing publications such as “Bulletins”, “News”, and “Reports”. The book exchange was negatively affected by the First World War and revolutionary events, which resulted in almost absolute termination of contacts with foreign scientific societies.
The development of libraries of European branches of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society was inextricably linked with contributing individuals and often depended on the selfless and gratuitous work of employees. The libraries of European branches of the Geographical Society proved to be the centers for science promotion, and their extensive book exchange contacts with national and foreign scientific institutions contributed to the creation and development of sustainable scientific communications.

The scientific libraries participate in building the information and communication infrastructure being an integral part of the scientific, educational,socio-cultural and industrial complex of the region. The authors review in brief the evolution of the State Public Scientific and Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPSTL SB RAS) – the leading information and library center of Siberia in the context of changing scientific and educational environment.
The Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, established in 1957, contributes to the active development of science in the east of the country. Implementing strategic objectives, among the priority measures the Branch heads laid the new system foundations of research information support, which met the demands of science development and the specific character of the institution activity within the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Big efforts to expand the network of libraries of research institutes were undertaken. The State Public Scientific Technological Library of the SB USSR AS, which began its activities in the region in 1958, was designed as the central library of the USSR SB AS (SB RAS). For 65 years, it has been providing information and methodological support for multidisciplinary research. The Library also acts as an institutional center in the library science, bibliography and bibliology, book history, and the largest library and information, cultural, educational, educational center, shaping the modern information, scientific, educational and cultural environment.

The author examines the history of the Scientific Library of Polotsk State University from its establishment till nowadays. For 55 years, the Library has been dynamically developing along with its parent organization: The library of Belorussian Polytechnic Institution Branch (1968), the library of Novopolotsk Polytechnic Institute (1974), the library of the classical university (1993); and since 2005 it has been operating as a scientific library. The contribution of the library leaders and directors is characterized in brief. Today, the Library is housed across three sites, each of them belongs to a particular epoch. The library was first founded in Novopolotsk, and today the administration, information resources development department, lending, reading and exhibition rooms, conference hall, and Polotsk land education and science museum, are located here. The library branch in Polotsk is located in the restored historical building of Jesuist collegium (1580), once the largest educational library. The library branch in Mezhdurechye settlement is a new, comfortable and modern environment and a new type of library. As a whole, the library today is a n educational, research and cultural center; it provides access to information resources, supports and facilitates the university’s educational research and professional work.

Scholarly journals can be classified according to many different criteria. Unfortunately, the classification of scientific journals is not a subject on which experts agree. Although some researchers have made suggestions on the subject, it is far from clear how to classify scientific journals. For these reasons, the aim of this study is to propose criteria for the classification of scientific journals and to make the subject more clear and understandable. Undoubtedly, the subject is controversial and open to criticism. We attempt to classify scholarly journals according to the indexes they are covered in. By using various databases and literatures and a lso b y a dding m y o wn t houghts a nd i nterpretations, s o t his t ext h as emerged. The scholarly journals were summed under four groups, viz., 1. Journals covered by Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Database such as SCI-Expanded, SSCI, AHCI; 2. Journals covered by ESCI (Part of the Web of Science), SCImago SCOPUS and PubMed Medline; 3. Journals covered in other international or local indexes and 4. Journals that are not covered by any index. The indexes they are covered can give an idea about the performance of the journal. The results of this study have provided clearer, understandable and measurable criteria for the classification of scientific journals

The effectiveness of innovative scientific and educational activities largely relies on the technologies of the library industry, including modern information and library systems. Academic and research libraries introduce new technologies in an effort to improve the quality of their services. Artificial intelligence is one of the key technologies for digital transformation of the library industry. The study is aimed at identifying trends in the use of artificial intelligence in information and library service technologies. The author applied the general dialectical method, theoretical analysis and generalization of the content of special, scientific and technical literature, regulatory documents in the field of digitalization of librarianship and artificial intelligence. The results of the study have revealed the role of the integration of artificial intelligence technologies into information and library systems, which lies in the fact that they contribute to the formation of national intellectual libraries, computerization of the routine library services, and structuring innovative academic digital space for the users. Using the example of integration of context awareness technology into some information and library systems, the ability of a digital system to make “reasonable” decisions to extract relevant information for learning and self-education is demonstrated, which also allows to find educational materials on the topic being studied, and to build explicit educational route for a user.

The All-Russia monitoring of the staffing needs in librarianship is an efficient way to get valuable current and prospective data through using the latest technological solutions and efficient interaction between public libraries affiliated with regional/municipal agencies of culture of the Russian Federation constituents.
The authors discuss the technology and results of data acquisition, as well as the obtained staff monitoring database. For the first time, the tested method of data acquisition enabled the Russian State Library to monitor the staff needs in librarianship in the multitasking mode and to apply the cloud technology with the professional application designed for online operation on the national scope. The authors explore the differences between national and foreign software providers in rendering specific services to online users. The professional application enabled to conduct monitoring in the shortest term, to optimize expenses and to save resources in complex environment. Among methodological solutions, the Center of Educational Programs Monitoring of the Research Educationa Activities Department of the Russian State Library, have designed the standardized data collection forms for every level of libraries.
The effectiveness of this methodology enabled to launch the system of data acquisition for the All-Russian monitoring of staff needs in the library sphere, to systematize data by the RF constituents and as a data set, and to build the source database for staff monitoring in librarianship.

Academic librarians have to upgrade continuously their competences to meet the demands of researchers and emerging requirements to the profession. The authors present the results of the survey of 227 researchers of academic and research institutions. The 2023 survey was designed to reveal the most demanded competences of academic librarians. The positive correlation is found between the frequency of library services use and the size of academic institution the library belongs to; the smaller the institution – the more frequently the researchers use the library independently of their institution specialization. The authors argue that the academic library services have been still demanded in the scholarly environment. The younger researchers (up to 23 yo) use the library services more intensively than the other age groups. The scientific community expects the librarians to master the competences of working with publishing systems, reference databases, new information systems and web-services