In his several recent articles, Yury N. Stolyarov has formulated strategic tasks for the library science, in particular, to update urgently the definition of “the library” in official documents with the focus on library activities as a social good. In this connection, the author argues that theoretical knowledge has to be developed in librarianship to develop essentially unambiguous terminology. The system approach proves to be efficient for formulating key concepts in the library science. This approach eliminates mistakes when determining the integrity of elements making the system essence of the object under study. “The library” is a key c oncept o f t he l ibrary s cience; t hough i t h as b een a mbiguous f or t he l ong time with the extension and content changing according to historical ideas of this phenomenon. The abstract ideas of the library have been developing in a quite traditional way, i. e. from static (points, lines, planar geometric figures, 3-dimensional objects) to dynamic ones. The author supports the proposal to formulate different definitions of the library, i. e. for the professional and national standards, which would enable to describe the reality with the greater precision. Based on her theoretical studies, the author suggests updated definitions of: “the library” scientific category, the concepts of “the library as a social institution”, “personal library” and “the library as an organization; as only “the library as a social institution” is subject to regulation by normative documents. Differentiation of “the library” scientific concept into specific ones makes the foundation for formulating different definitions for the professionals and national standards.

The author investigates into the history of the main military library of the Russian Empire. In the mid 19-th century, the General Staff Library became one of the largest book depositories in Russia. The author sets the goal to review the main events related to the library during the period when F. F. Kruse and A. N. Petrov were heading the institution. This period was characterized by consistent collection development and collaborations with military historians, and by the new trends of expanding openness of the institution. Owing to the reform by Dmitry Milyutin, Minister of War, the library became accessible for all military personnel a nd, through s pecial o rder, f or c ivilians. T he s ources f or the s tudy a re unpublished materials from the Russian State Military Historical Archive.
Based on these sources and literature, the author describes the efforts of the librarians F. F. Kruse and A. N. Petrov, analyzes the internal structure of the institution, the sources for collection development and structure. Despite the fact that the institution was run by professional soldiers – the above-mentioned librarians had a military education, and Petrov even took part in the Crimean War – the library was developed properly and performed efficiently.

Positioning of the libraries’ services on their official websites is seen as an important way to increase their competitiveness and ensure the growth of the number of readers and remote users.
The results of the study conducted in 2021–2022 on the positioning of the services of the central libraries of 77 subjects of the Russian Federation on their official websites are presented.
The contradiction is revealed between the diversification of services provided by the central libraries of the subjects of the Russian Federation and the difficulty of finding complete and accurate information about services provided to remote users, and the difficulty of finding specific services on the official websites of libraries.
The authors provide evidences that information about services on library websites is often scattered across different headings and subheadings, with no hyperlinks. The duplication of services accessed via banners has a disorienting effect on users, too.
The authors conclude that there is currently no logically predictable and well-structured information about library services on the official websites of the central libraries of the RF constituent subjects. Consequently, the libraries’ huge efforts of services diversifying are not reflected on their official websites, and remote users are not aware of the wide range of services provided by modern libraries.
The authors emphasize that success of library service positioning is determined not only by the presence of the heading “Services” on the website main page, but also by intelligent reflection of the whole range of services provided to the library users both in traditional and electronic forms.

The authors endeavor to develop an approach toward designing academic digital shadows and twins for efficient management of educational processes in training professionals in the real-time mode, as well as for strategic and immediate decisions. They suggest a model for direct management of multilevel educational processes and development of individual educational trajectories (IET) through using digital twins (DT) within the educational process in the years 3–4, master’s programs, and within the framework of continuing professional education. The general concept of DT application in educational organization is developed, i. e. student-oriented model with IET as a core. The authors also examine IET as an instrument of mobile and rapid re-engineering of educational processes scaled t o t he a ctual n eeds o f t he e conomy a nd e mployers’ c urrent d emands; as well as general approaches to IET support, in particular, through online educational technologies and virtual educational platforms and resources. The virtual reality platforms may be used in distance learning when developing IET in multilevel educational systems. The authors compare several virtual reality platforms, metauniverses, their tools and applications in educational processes.

The author argues that research community is more interested in the open access (OA) initiatives rather than in the open science in general. She points out the insufficient methodological support of the open science research, civil science research ethics, and other components of open scientific knowledge and engagement of social actors. The author relates these factors to the urgency of intensified efforts to promote the ecosystem of open science. The analysis findings enable to suggest three main units to organize library efforts within the framework of open science, i. e. methodological support and education; outreach activities and marketing; law and business information processing. Depending on the library structure and staffing, the functions can be divided between its departments – from methodological and public relations department to technology and innovations support departments, – or, optionally, concentrated in just one. The author illustrates the first steps in promoting open science as a whole with the experience of “The library for open science” platform being designed by the research department of the State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2022.

The author investigates into the dedicatory inscriptions in the book collection of Genrikh (Henry) Trofimenko (1929–2005) – prominent historian, specialist in the US military doctrine. The study expands our understanding of inscriptions as a source of information on the professional environment, its specifics, statuses and relationships of players. The theoretical basis of the study is the provisions that consider the inscription as a historical, cultural and sociocultural phenomenon that reflects both personal and public relations. The main research methods are the structural and content analysis of dedicatory inscriptions and the analysis of open biographical data about their authors and addressee.
It is shown that the features of the professional environment are revealed in the inscriptions through: 1) its complex structure; 2) references to the subject of professional discussion or the content of the presented book; 3) indications of the date and place of a specific event or circumstances. The analysis of the institutional affiliation of the authors evidences that the members of Trofimenko’s professional environment were highly qualified professionals who headed and represented government, business and public institutions. G. A. Trofimenko’s involvement in this environment and scientific collaboration with foreign colleagues testify to his high expertise and authority.

The article is a tribute to the prominent Soviet and Ukrainian documentologist and bibliography scientist Galina N. Shvetsova-Vodka. Upon her graduation from the East-Siberian State Institute of Culture (Ulan-Ude) in 1966, Galina Shvetsova-Vodka studied at Leningrad State Institute of Culture under Master’s Program (1967–1971), and taught at the Institute’s bibliography chair till 1979. She moved to the city of Rovno, Ukrainian SSR, and served as an assistant professor at the bibliographic studies chair of Rovno State Institute of Culture (1979– 1987), and headed the chair till 1995. In 1995–1998, Galina Shvetsova-Vodka served as the professor of the chair, and then, to the end of her life – the professor of Rovno State Humanitarian University. In 2002, she defended her doctoral thesis “The document and book within the system of social communications” and thus became the first Doctor of Science in documentology in the Commonwealth of Independent States. She became a professor in 2005. Galina N. Shvetsova- Vodka died on May 1, 2023, in Rovno, Ukraine. The range of her interests in science, as reflected in her 260 publications, comprised documentology, bibliography, library science, bibliology. Her principal works are “Defining the document in the documentary and information studies” (1991), “The general theory of document and book” (2009), “The document in the light of noocommunicology” (2010). In the area of documentology, Galina Shvetsova-Vodka was a pioneer in many senses. She was one of the first of those who supported the idea of document – noosphere interconnection, and the concept of Bibliologos introduced by Arkady V. Sokolov. She made a significant contribution to the bibliographic science by publishing the textbook “The general bibliographic science: The basics of the theory of bibliography” (1995); “The bibliographic resources in Ukraine” (2000); “The introduction to the bibliography” (2004) (2004). She also studied the history of critical bibliographic periodicals of 1920s, many other aspects of the bibliography theory, history, and practice.