The author introduces the basic principles of documentology. Its subject is the document as an abstract concept considered at the methodological, theoretical, historical and practical levels. Structurally, it is legitimate to study the document a s a w hole, a s w ell a s i n r elation t o i ts i ndividual a spects a nd f eatures. The result of this study is the division of documentology into general, special and specific discipline. The pan-civilization significance of documents as the most important masterpiece of human genius is that it enables to freeze things in time or even to turn time back – which is otherwise impossible for the human beings.

The documents give the material form to ethereal thoughts and knowledge of any kind, over the entire existence of the humankind. The appearance of the written language enables to draw the line between prehistorical and historical periods of human existence. No one social function is possible without documents; the documents has been the most powerful factors of the civilization progressing. The entity of document is compared to that of information; the former is characterized mainly with its components, namely nominative, generative, material, signative, semantic, syntaxive, temporal and pragmatic. The best definition of document is given by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO): Document is “recorded information or material object which can be used as a unit in the documentation process”; in particular, the document in library collections is the recorded information or a physical matter matching the collection profile. The basic postulates of documentology are generalized; they comprise the discipline structure and laws, the general principles of creating, disseminating, storing and using the documents; as well as the core document elements.

In March, 2021, Valentina A. Minkina would turn eighty. Valentina A. Minkina is a prominent scientist, doctor of pedagogy, Professor of Information Management Department that she headed from 1991 to 2004. In memory of Valentina Minkina, the Library and Information Faculty of Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Culture holds the annual International Scientific and Methodological Conference “Continuing LIS Education”. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many professional events had to move to online or were deferred to a later date, and this conference, too. It is hard to overestimate the contribution of Valentina Minkina made to the library science. The authors review in brief her research efforts as the leader of the library scientific school and a wonderful mentor. The authors also review the origins and development of the conference. Among other library professional forums, the conference is unique as it focuses on professional education and training staff for libraries and information organizations, which is due not in no small way to Minkina’s ideas and the faculty’s traditions. The most significant publications in the periodicals on the conference are listed.

Ecological issues make the significant stream in RNPLS&T’s activities. In 2009, the Ecological E-library was established. At present, the E-library comprises 22 collections of over 800 books, journals and serials in the rare publications collections of RNPLS&T and partner organizations. The collections are being published on DVDs and are also available on open access on the Library’s ecological webpage. The project goal is to acquire an accessible full-text resource in the RF nature management built on science literature of the 18th-early 20th centuries. The resource is being enriched with new special collections. For this purpose, Ecology and Sustainable Development Projects Group has implemented the algorithm for special collection development encompassing content selection and assessment, digitization of publications and publishing the digital periodical registered by Informregistr Sci-tech Center. After the collection is loaded online, the Group is to promote it through issuing methodological guide on how to use the collection in ecological education.

The article is prepared within the framework of the State Order № 075-01300-20-00.

The author examines prospects for applying the full-range standard functionalities of automatic proximity identification systems. He discusses their performance capabilities for unique identification of library documents in the library information systems of different scaling plateau; using standards library standard identifiers in non-library information systems; the functionality of automatic proximity identification systems for library automation. The RFID technology plays the key role in developing automatic proximity identification. The library application features are examined from the viewpoint of harmonization with international and RF standards of automatic proximity identification systems. Developing the Internet of things concept gives into a new communication environment emerging based on the automatic proximity identification. This technology's standard capabilities may significantly expand the functionality of library automation. Integration of library information systems with global automatic identification systems is on agenda which is evidenced by the logic of development of information systems and library RFID.

The article is written within the framework of the State Order № 730000F.99.1.BV09АА00006.

The chat communication is a new type of user distance service. The authors examine the technology applications in different organizations and libraries, in particular. Intelligent information systems are used for designing virtual assistants and chatbots. The authors emphasize that, as for today, the scientific classification for chatbots is lacking. They attempt to categorize virtual talkbots. They discuss iPavlov artificial intellect library. The most interesting Russian developments are Telegram chatbots of Russian State Library for Young Adults, Directorate of Cultural Centers of Moscow, and that of St. Petersburg State Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired. RNPLS&T has implemented jivo system of chat communication. The reasons for choosing this system and operation results are discussed. The authors conclude that chat communication meets the principles and improves efficiency of user services.

Classification systems are published primarily in the book form, for various purposes and in different versions. They are identified by the number or year of publication. The authors propose another variant of maintaining classification systems, i.e. in the card format.

The authors discuss the issues of presenting classification schedules of popular classification systems on the Internet with special focus on their applications. They explain why privately owned classification systems, like Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), are not published on the Internet, while the systems supported by government organizations (e.g. national libraries) are traditionally published openly. The authors provide the example of the Library of Congress Classification (LCC), which is the United States’ National Classification System and which is published on open access. The project of the open presentation of the Library-Bibliographical Classification (LBC) in several versions supplemented with indices on the website of the Russian State Library (RSL) is described in more detail. The possibilities for their use are analyzed.

Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the Web and a common source of information for many users. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia was not conceived as a source of original information, but as a gateway to secondary sources: according to Wikipedia’s guidelines, facts must be backed up by reliable sources that reflect the full spectrum of views on the topic. Although citations lie at the heart of Wikipedia, little is known about how users interact with them. To close this gap, we built client-side instrumentation for logging all interactions with links leading from English Wikipedia articles to cited references during one month, and conducted the first anal-ysis of readers’ interactions with citations. We find that overall engagement with citations is low: about one in 300 page views results in a reference click (0.29% overall; 0.56% on desktop; 0.13% on mobile). Matched observational studies of the factors associated with reference clicking reveal that clicks occur more frequently on shorter pages and on pages of lower quality, suggesting that references are consulted more commonly when Wikipedia itself does not contain the information sought by the user. Moreover, we observe that recent content, open access sources, and references about life events (births, deaths, marriages, etc.) are particularly popular. Taken together, our findings deepen our understanding of Wikipedia’s role in a global information economy where reliability is ever less certain, and source attribution ever more vital.

The article is dedicated to the memory of the first director of the Library of Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences (before 1991, the USSR Academy of Sciences). The Library for Natural Sciences was established in 1973 on the basis of the Sector for Special Libraries (in charge of collection development of Moscow research institutes and of their union catalog maintenance). The Library for Natural Sciences was conceived as an information library center focused on science and research information support based on modern technologies. Alexander Grigorievich Zakharov, newly-retired military professional, Lieutenant General, headed the library. In the shortest time possible, Alexander Zakharov built the centralized library system headed by the Library for Natural Sciences and meeting the demands of the time. For many years the Library’s Centralized Library System has been the largest and most developed network; the Library has been the leader in library automation based on the newest computer and network technologies. The authors have been working for the Library for over 40 years, and over 30 years under the leadership of Alexander G. Zakharov. They review the main stages of Zakharov’s career: the Great Patriotic War (he went through the war from beginning to end), his service at cosmodrome of Baikonur (launch operations, including support of Yury Gagarin’s flight), his work in the Library for Natural Sciences.