To what extent do academic and research libraries contribute to the work of their mother organizations, i.e. research institutes and universities? What is the role of libraries in scientific research? Which problems do hinder the development of librarianship? These and related questions were in the focus of an analytical study conducted in 2018 by Springer Nature, which sent many questionnaires to the libraries around the world with a supplementary limiting interview of 20 librarians. Some part of the responses was quite predictable, and respondents specified the library problems as lacking money, underestimation of the library services and libraries themselves, toughening requirements of university community, and expanding needs of research teams. The respondents often mentioned new, positive approaches in the work of libraries – support of researchers willing to publishing their papers, building and maintaining repositories, increasing independence of libraries in acquisition process and collection development. The study findings offer some solutions to the dispute about the status of libraries and their prospects, which is held by our reputable experts, e.g. V. K. Stepanov, Yu. N. Stolyarov, etc.

The author analyzes the origins of interest towards philosophical issues the book and library scientists and researcher bibliographers take. The need for more close interaction between philosophy and the library and information science in the circumstances of transition from information society to knowledge society and digital economy is substantiated. The process of cognitive institutionalization of philosophical knowledge in the library and information science is examined. The author analyzes several works by Arkady V. Sokolov on the content and specific features of bibliosophy as a philosophical system focused on biblioshere within the historical context. The key functions of philosophical knowledge are discussed as related to library and information science which enables rationalizing and reliable, accurate and relevant assessment of multiple and unique processes and phenomena in this disciplines. The focus is made on the worldview, ontological, gnoseological, methodological and axiological functions. The authors emphasizes the role of philosophy in developing conceptual, theoretical, logical and methodological structures for serious study of bibliosphere and its rational perception as one of the fundamental cultural segments

Using various classifiers, which are thought to facilitate analytical work through structuring subject areas, in fact impedes this work. The authors present the method of combining several classification systems, namely the State Rubricator of Sci-tech Information (SRNTI); and RAS VINITI’s Rubricator of Disciplines; Universal Decimal Classification (UDC); International Patent Classification (IPC). The combination of these classification systems solves the fundamental problem which is to obtain the most detailed understanding of any scientific problem. The solution of this problem enables to determine search boundaries, filter out insignificant and irrelevant information on the subject (in this case – Microbiology). In their study, the authors selected the author's keywords and phrases. On the basis of the arrays of author’s keywords and phrases, an essential harmonized list of keywords and phrases for the basic Microbiology local rubricator was designed. Further, the selected keywords and phrases will serve as the foundation for building the ontological model of the discipline, which will enable computerized ontology building. The Microbiology draft rubricator developed by the authors comprises a three-level hierarchy. In particular, the first level is based on the classical concept of classification systems. Rubricator in Microbiology is developed on the basis of VINITI RAS classification of disciplines through the detailing method.

The www-sites represent libraries virtually on the Internet and perform many of the functions of these institutions. Currently, library site building is developing intensively. The researchers focus on the organization and content allocation, design concept, services marketing, assessment of information resources quality. One of the most important tasks to be solved by these social institutions is user acquisition. However, the issues of search engine optimization of www-sites are studied insufficiently. The author presents the findings of the study of federal libraries’ www-sites. The comparative analysis of www-sites was carried out by the criteria of www-site quality index, number of external links to the resource, total social activity, as well as the adaptability for mobile devices. The PR-CY.ru service was used as an analysis tool. According to the study, the one third of the federal libraries’ www-sites can be characterized, from the user's point of view, as high-quality information resources. The author also analyzes the information channels through which users get to the federal libraries www-sites. For 80% of www-sites under examination, the largest number of users find them with search engines. Only 40% of the federal libraries’ sites are adapted for mobile devices, which affects the quality of information resources and makes it difficult for users to access information. The author emphasizes the need for optimizing the www-sites of federal libraries, as well as for monitoring their information resources using web-analytics.

The author reveals and analyses the problems of digital archive building. She summarizes the experience of VAK (Higher Attestation Commission) documentary e-archive. Building and development of VAK archival information system is discussed; the problems of each stage are specified. The author discusses the processes of archival materials analysis and systematization. The processes of archival documents verification, digitization of archival materials, information system development, storage of digitized materials are examined. The analysis goal is to summarize complicated problems of the project implementation and to design viable approaches to be used in similar projects. The ways to populate digital archives are identified; efficient procedure for building digital archives is proposed.

The findings of the comparative study of documents representing the process of supporting the academic ethical values in students' information activities are presented. The empirical data were obtained as a result of analysis of 24 ethical codes of Russian universities and documentation of the Harvard University Honor Council. The documents indicating the practice of ethical regulation in the field of students' work with information loaded to the official websites of Russian universities are studied. The procedures of the Harvard Honor Council are discussed, the statistics of violations of academic integrity examined by the Honor Council is analyzed.
The author concludes that Russian universities are at the initial stage of implementing full-fledged system of ethical regulation of the university community activities, and their initiatives aimed at approval of their ethical codes are primarily of the declarative nature. Based on the study of documented practice of the Harvard Honor Council, it is demonstrated how a well-developed ethical regulation mechanism provides for efficient control over the observance of the principles of academic integrity that are postulated in Harvard's Code of Honor. The conclusion about the high degree of influence of the “Codes of Honor” on the US university community is made.

The scientometric characteristics of Belarusian journals indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded are compared to those of the journals that belong in the same subject category and have the best values of the impact factor, as well as of the journals that have the value of impact factor that corresponds to the last position of the second quartile (“the middle-list journals”).
It is determined how many times the value of impact factor of the journal of the highest value impact factor in the same subject category as well as the impact factor of the “middle-list journal” exceeds that of the indexed Belarusian journals. The authors investigate into how many citations a Belarusian journal should get “in addition” to the ones it has already obtained in order to have the impact factor coinciding with the value of the "the middle-list journal” in the same subject category. The prospects are evaluated for Belarusian journals, the papers of which are currently displayed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index, to be indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded. Recommendations are given to the editorial boards of the journals under consideration aimed to strengthen their positions in Science Citation Index Expanded or to be included into this database.