A complication of academic research, the emergence of new subject areas at the intersection of different scientific disciplines, increase in international collaboration are accompanied by an increase in the number of co-authors resulting in the problem of author attribution requiring the development of new approaches to detecting authors’ roles and formation of new authorship criteria. The solution of the problem of authorship attribution should specify actual contribution of the scientist to preparing research and the paper, distinguish areas of responsibility of co-authors, and enable certain researchers to accumulate their own reputation capital. The current study presents a review of Russian and foreign approaches for solving this problem including the development of new sections in articles for naming persons who do not match authorship criteria and introduction of models of sequence order of authors. The paper also traces the main stages in the development of authorship criteria, describes the advantages and disadvantages of authorship model as compared to new contributorship model. Transition to the fractional calculation of the contribution of each participant of a research paper is believed to be promising implying significance of the author’s position in the byline and an increased role of paper sections describing the specific contribution of each author.

The authors discuss the use of files being accumulated by library www-serves (log-files) for calculating altmetrics. The log-files comprise information on all queries therefore they can be used for calculating statistical indicators of online user activity index in compliance with the federal standard GOST 7.0.20-2014. The authors also analyze the provisions of the standard as referred to online user services control. The COUNTER format is the international format assigning the list and form for presenting statistical data on using digital resources. The current version 5, the COUNTER Code and the algorithm of master data (log-files) processing are discussed. The authors conclude that Russian libraries have not introduced the unified method for counting the requests to their digital resources so far. Meaningful combination of GOST requirements, COUNTER fundamental indicators and calculation of indicators obtained through log-files analysis enable to analyze the relevance of library digital resources to various user categories.

The author reviews the results of the extended bibliometrical analysis of the requests to the RNPLS&T’s e-catalogs in 2018 and the first half of 2019. This analysis enables to obtain popular requests rating for various sources – the Internet search engines and individual users. The author concludes that the search engines more often search for full texts on the Internet. However, individual users mostly search for bibliographic records of theses abstracts’ in RNPLS&T’s e-catalog. The printed publications by the authors with the highest rating in the Library’s collection would enable potential users to access these publications if the owner removes the digital copy. The publications which texts are available for uploading are recommended to be made accessible free through the National Electronic Library.

Improving education process through efficient technologies to build essential job competences and increasing effectiveness of professionals is the relevant issue within the system of continuing professional education. The efficiency of the continuing professional education program depends on the student’s efforts as well on the methods to build new professional knowledge and skills. The case technology is one of the practice-oriented methods; it assumes that knowledge and skills building is a result of the proactive independent efforts aimed at conflict resolution, which results in acquiring professional knowledge and skills creatively and developing mental functions. The authors examine the case technology as a method of interactive practice-oriented education. The program “The Introduction into Bibliometrics” is the innovative one as it is integrated into the big-scale academic project. The methods and stages of case development in the area: “The publication ethics. Predatory journals” (4 stages) are described. The case application features are characterized. The authors conclude that the case method influences positively on students testing results within the array of the tests passed within the framework of the continuing professional education program.

In the recent decades, libraries have been constantly pressurized to justify the value of their staff, services, and their very existence to their stakeholders and users who have changed their informational behavior. The key to the libraries’ success lies in the flexibility of their internal environments, as well as in the ability to predict, manage, and use changes in the external environment. To a great extent, it depends on whether the library has developed its marketing policy as well as on the understanding of its necessity and on implementation principles. In the early 2019, the specialists of SPSTL SB RAS conducted a large-scale survey “Modern trends in the development of library resources in the web space”, that comprises several types of libraries in 23 countries of the world. The author addresses the study in the part that considers organization of library marketing divisions in the world. She substantiates the need for them and identifies the common vectors in this area.

The study findings demonstrate that despite theoretical understanding of marketing efforts significance and acceptance of the single concept (marketing policy) of audience capture, the few libraries are ready to allocate additional resources, in particular, labor, to practical implementation of such theoretical understanding. The need for the promotion coordinated concept makes significant difference in the responses of domestic and foreign respondents. For Russian libraries, the coordinated promotion concept being introduced by the administration, is more acceptable, while foreign libraries most of time permit their divisions to choose independently how to promote their services, resources, and events. Besides, among the libraries that follow a single coordinated concept, the percentage of those lacking a special promotion unit, is lower by 10–20%. From this perspective, the single concept has a positive impact on building administration awareness of the need for marketing efforts which, however, does not necessarily result in systematic marketing efforts of libraries.

The authors analyze how the university scientific conferences in library and information studies are being reflected on the Internet. The findings of the study conducted by authors draw the attention of professional community to the problem of representation of academic proceedings of the Russia’s institutes of culture. These conferences are seen as a professional communication channel and a means to improve professional competences in the whole library and information industry. The authors analyze the problems of accessing the proceedings of scientific conferences held by the universities of culture, which are the essential component of the Russian library science advance. Through monitoring the www-sites of the universities of culture and studying the Internet resources in the area, the authors review the existing ways of distributing information and propose the options for presenting full-text science information to provide efficient information exchange in the library and information sphere. The resources being built with the open data technology, providing a multiaspect search and storage of information for repeated and free use, are proposed as a priority. The findings of the study evidence that for the moment, the complete representation of the research activities at the universities of culture is unavailable, and there is a need to apply the resources proposed by the authors.

Considering the changes in technologies, the library scientists admit that information technologies impact significantly the library sphere and call for changing paradigms. Today, the scientific library community cannot but agree that that the issues related to computer-aided technologies application require specially focused examination and research within the library studies as well as specific methodology, tools, and a new terminology system. The library scientific community today is focused on the issues of e-libraries typology, theory of user services within the digital environment, theory of library information retrieval instruments integrated into the modern information space. The problem of the library economics in the circumstances of the digital economy is no less significant. The authors analyze the demand for theoretical substantiation and specific studies within the new discipline, namely “Electronic (or digital) library science”, review papers on the problem, and propose several subdivisions for the discipline of digital library science; they also attempt to reveal the new discipline’s  interconnection with other disciplines. 

The author reviews the experience of RNPLS&T in developing the Open Archive and in particular, in building the system of statistical information acquiring and analysis. The author emphasizes that the RNPLS&T’s main goal is to increase the standards of user library and information services, which is accomplished through building, maintaining, analyzing its collections, databases and databanks, including its e-catalogs, specialized topical dayabases and periodical databases in sciences. For this purpose, the system of acquiring and analyzing statistical information is being built. This system, at a new level, enables to acquire a different segment of data essential for further optimization of information systems and for user services, on the whole. The new technologies enable to keep track of user flows, efficient order processing, and demand for certain subjects and individual publications. The author concludes that this makes a powerful and universal instrument and technology for analyzing the RNPLS&T’s technologies and information systems and forecasting their development with actual information on user behavior. 

The problem of studying digital books as a bibliogical category remains one of the most relevant within the system of bibliology, library science and bibliography. The functions of digital information within the modern communication environment are extremely diverse, while the mechanism for determining their belonging to the book system as a whole and the digital books in particular has not yet been found. Several studies have provided a theoretical substantiation for the possibility of using fuzzy logic methods for this purpose, but this is not sufficient to solve the problem. The mathematical methods to be applied to book objects have to be indentified and, based on them, mathematical modeling is possible. No studies of this kind have been yet conducted in bibliology. Based on the findings of theoretical and empirical studies, the authors substantiate the possibility for using the mathematical apparatus of fuzzy logic to study classifying digital documents within the system of digital books. The terms of applying these methods to digital books are revealed, the stages of mathematical modeling are analyzed, examples of the practical application of mathematical methods to electronic objects are given, which demonstrates the possibility and specific character of using fuzzy logic to book objects.

The Fifth International professional forum «The Book. Culture. Education. Innovations» is reviewed in brief. After 5 years, it has been still one of the most expected and important professional events in library, information, education, publishing and related spheres. The Forum survives, despite many problems, in particular, the political ones that both participants and organizers encounter. The focus is made on the 26-th International Conference «Libraries and information resources in the modern world of science, culture, education and business» and the SecondScientific and Educational Symposium «Designing and developing modern digital environment for education and science» which main topics were the new generation of education standards, digital resources and e-libraries in culture; professional education and management. The open press conference, Central Discussion Site, The Day of the Russian State Library, The Day of Crimean Libraries, the Second Scientific Conference «Scientometrics, bibliometrics, open data and publications in science», project session and the directorate meeting of the National Library Association “Libraries of the Future”, and the special event “100 years of St. Petersburg Institute of Culture, held within the framework of the Forum, are also discussed.