Recent Developments in the Russian Far East: The State of Education

• Main Authors: For Librarianship, John V. Richardson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: 131°56’11 ” East. Considering its [most] southern location the climate seems to be; Magadan; Kamchatka; Sakhalin
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.200.507; http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/jrichardson/alise.pdf

In this article, the author reports on a recent visit to the Russian Far East to lecture and consult with Russian universities interested in developing new library and information science programs, courtesy of the U.S. Department of State. It provides a brief geographical orientation to the region, background on the existing system of higher education in Russia, a case study of several universities in the region, and then adopts a social, technical, economical, political, and environmental (STEPE) analysis of the current situation. Rigorous formal education for library and information science in this region is embryonic, but most promising. “The more educated a man is, The more useful he is to his country.” —Aleksandr Griboyedov, 19th Century playwright Education for librarianship in Russia, especially in the Far East, is undergoing some profound changes. Remotely distant from Moscow by over 9,000 kilometers, the Far East includes the Primorskii and Khabarovskii Krai as well as the Amur, Magadan, Kamchatka, and Sakhalin regions—over 7.9 million people in 6.2 million square kilometers. Yet, outside their country little is known about these developments because most of the relevant literature is written in Cyrillic, not widely disseminated, nor well controlled bibliographically. Hence, the goal of this article is to resolve the knowledge void established above. In order to inform the readers about the present conditions, this article has two main objectives: (1) to describe the current situation regarding the future developments of education for librarianship in the Russian Far East, focusing most notably on Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, 1 and in doing so, (2) to adopt a social, technical, economic, political, and environment analysis of the current situation. I hope readers will agree that it is worthwhile knowing what is occurring globally in other parts of the world, especially in a country which borders the United States, and that as scholars we face similar challenges as we develop our own library and ...