Traditional Academic Library Networks in Digital Culture

Abstract

The transition from printed to digital culture has fundamentally changed the approaches, forms and methods (or products and services) that university and academic libraries use for information support of scientific research. Activity of library-information network of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SB RAS), organized in the era of printed culture as a three-level system, is undergoing significant changes in connection with the development of digital technologies, scientific communications and reforming of the RAS. These circumstances required the creation of a new model of the library network as an actual information-communication channel, firstly, the way to preserve the accumulated traditional collections. The purpose of this article is to show the advance model for academic library system or network operating within a single complex scientific organizational structure, with their unique printed book collections. To build the model, the author used data on the information behaviour of researchers from the SB RAS, collected through questionnaires, data on the activity trends of university libraries, presented on their websites and in peer-reviewed journals, as well as monitoring data of the activities of scientific libraries. The author took into account both general external factors (information behaviour of users of scientific information, organizational changes in library networks, current trends and experience of scientific research support by academic and university libraries, changes in the scientific environment) and internal (specific) factors related to the reforming of the RAS. The article describes two stages of reorganization of the current model of library-information network of the SB RAS. The article shows how the new model radically changes the old one, as it transforms the structure of resources and collections, the functions of libraries and demonstrates the development trends of competences and skills of library staff.