The scientific legacy of Emilia Konstantinovna Bespalova, well-known Russian bibliographer, theorist and historian of bibliography, includes more than 200 works. She laid her own line in theoretical and methodological understanding of bibliography science and activity. “Formation of Bibliographic Thought in Russia (Up to the 60s of the 19th century)” is the last fundamental work of E.K. Bespalova; it describes the philosophical and methodological explication of bibliography as a naturally occurring phenomenon of information nature. There was formed unique method of analysis that considered historical and bibliographic facts in the context of professionalization of bibliographic activity. The analysis of bibliographic phenomena applied by E.K. Bespalova can be generally described as combination of modern theoretical knowledge on bibliography, methodology of system-activity approach and philosophy of historical process. The historical-theoretical method of studying bibliographic activity at different stages of its development allows a modern researcher to see the institutional significance of bibliographic processes as one of the full-fledged components of the global information picture.

Analyzing the initial, original object of bibliographic activity — a book, the scientist proves that it was the process of replication and therefore the need to create the secondary structure of a book in a form of title page, which made a book to be the “book”. Through the concept of “book” E.K. Bespalova also traces interaction and sequential connection of three systems — “knowledge”, “book” (“document”) and “bibliographic document”. From the point of view of cognitive potential of the history of bibliography, bibliographical guide is of historical and theoretical interest being the result of activity and the object of desobjectivation in it of the conceptual theoretical-methodological and historical representations of authors, composers and doers of the history of bibliography. As the main differentiation of bibliographic products, Bespalova puts forward the division into timer bibliographic subsystems (reflection of current, retrospective, prospective primary flow) and chorographic subsystems that restrict documentary flows by the territorial and linguistic principle. The historical method by E.K. Bespalova reveals a wide range of theoretical foundations that enrich modern bibliography science.