Historical and Informational Potential of the University Libraries Websites

Abstract

Historically, the scientific library has always been an important component of the structure of higher educational institution in Russia. Development of new technologies, creation of electronic information environment and availability of universities websites imposes on libraries certain responsibilities, associated not only with the provision of electronic resources and services to users, but also with the reflection on websites of various information about the libraries themselves, in particular, regarding their history. This information not only affects the formation of libraryʼs image, but can also become the basis for conducting modern scientific research in the field of library science. The presented research is devoted to studying the reflection of the history of libraries in the web space and determining the main trends in the development of information resources based on information on the history of librarianship.The authors highlight the results of the analysis of content of the libraries websites of the universities subordinate to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. The paper presents the data obtained upon the study of websites (web pages) of 252 universities and their libraries. The study was conducted from February to April 2021. There authors identified five options for the representation of materials on the history of librarianship: historical reference, historical essay, comprehensive information product, presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint, multimedia video presentation. Historical reference is the most common of them is. Based on the dates of establishment of universities and libraries compared in the course of study, it was possible to present in dynamics the general picture of their development.