Map of the Professional Educational Space of Russian Librarians: Formation and Development

By the decision of the Interdepartmental Council for the Development of Librarianship of the Russian Federation under the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation in 2022 the Russian State Library (RSL) was instructed to start work on the formation of registers of educational programmes of higher education and additional professional education for library specialists in a dedicated section of the portal of the federal state information system “National Electronic Library”.

At the beginning of 2024, the RSL conducted a pilot study to obtain information on secondary vocational education (SVE) programmes offered to librarians. A register of information on SVE programmes has not yet been created. As of June 2024, 41 educational institutions of secondary vocational education (colleges) implement 106 library programmes.

The Register of the current main educational programmes of higher education implemented in the field of “Library and Information Activities” includes information on 75 educational programmes of higher education (bachelor’s and master’s degrees) of higher educational institutions in 34 subjects of the Russian Federation, including two new subjects of the Russian Federation — Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic (as of April 2024).

In the Register of existing educational programmes of professional development and professional retraining for library specialists there are 278 programmes (32 professional retraining programmes and 246 professional development programmes), which are implemented in 35 subjects of the Russian Federation by almost 50 institutions of various types (as of April 2024).

The needs of public libraries of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in library specialists with higher profile education account for more than half of the total needs in library specialists.

Let us analyze the data obtained as a result of the All-Russian monitoring of staffing needs in the library sphere conducted by the RSL. The needs for professionals with secondary vocational education account for one third. Almost all subjects of the Russian Federation — participants of the monitoring also indicated the need for library specialists with secondary or higher non-core education and core additional education. At the same time, it was revealed that higher profile education is preferable for library staff.

The data presented in the article, considered in the aggregate, allow assessing the state of the educational space of Russian librarians, as well as identifying the problems of training specialists for the library and information sphere.

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2. Order of the Government of the Russian Federation dated July 7, 2021 No. 1828-r “On approval of the action plan for the implementation of the Strategy for the Development of Library Science in the Russian Federation for the period until 2030.” URL: https://legalacts.ru/doc/rasporjazhenie-pravitelstva-rf-ot-07072021-n-1828-r-ob-utverzhdenii/ (date of access: 06.14.2024).

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