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Discretion in Russian Librarianship: Pre-Soviet, Soviet, Post-Soviet

Atkins, Andrea N.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343769040

Abstract Details

2012, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Slavic and East European Studies.
For most of the twentieth century, public libraries and librarians in Russia were tools for Soviet propaganda. While democratic concerns for literacy and societal development were ideals that revolutionaries tried to uphold during the revolutionary period and early years of the USSR, ultimately the Soviet government executed policies that forced libraries and librarians to serve the goals of the state. The Soviet government appropriated the socio-cultural institution of the public library and made all of its activities subservient to the single principle of partiinost’. Thus, professional librarians in Russia had little ability to exercise their specialized knowledge to promote the public good, which is often viewed as a paramount goal of librarians. In this thesis I analyze both the historical process of the Soviet state’s claiming of the public library for propagating Soviet ideals and the reaction to this in the Post-Soviet era. I argue that the ability to exercise discretion is a primary characteristic of the profession of public librarianship, but that the ability to exercise discretion was denied to Russian public librarians. I also explain the Soviet’s concept of the public library by introducing readers’ guidance generally and evaluating the Soviet-style of readers’ guidance particularly. I chronicle the reclamation of the library profession, which began during glasnost’ and perestroika. Finally, I attempt to describe the current state of librarianship in Russia by highlighting some its more important developments in the post-Soviet period.
Jennifer Suchland, PhD (Advisor)
Jessie Labov, PhD (Committee Member)
61 p.
Library Science; Slavic Studies
librarianship; public library; Russia

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Atkins, A. N. (2012). Discretion in Russian Librarianship: Pre-Soviet, Soviet, Post-Soviet [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343769040

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Atkins, Andrea. Discretion in Russian Librarianship: Pre-Soviet, Soviet, Post-Soviet. 2012. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343769040.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Atkins, Andrea. "Discretion in Russian Librarianship: Pre-Soviet, Soviet, Post-Soviet." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343769040

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1343769040
1,361
© 2012, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Discretion in Russian Librarianship: Pre-Soviet, Soviet, Post-Soviet by Andrea N. Atkins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.