The article examines the evolution of the phenomenon of mass reading in the USSR and Russia during the last decades of the 20th century – a period of sociopolitical transformations. The relevance of the work is determined by the need to understand the role of reading not only as a cultural practice, but also as an indicator of underlying social processes. The study of changing reader priorities goes beyond marketing analysis and allows us to identify value shifts, changes in collective consciousness, and different experiences of historical time in the eras of stagnation, reforms, and crisis. The purpose of the study is to analyze how the structure, motives and content of mass reading have transformed in response to the changing sociohistorical context, highlighting the key stages of this evolution. The author identifies three fundamentally different periods: the era of late “Brezhnev’s socialism” (1970s – 1985), the time of perestroika (1986–1991) and the post-Soviet period of the 1990s. At each stage, reading preferences, motivations for engaging with books, and the book’s symbolic role in society underwent change. The findings indicate a close relationship between the political and ideological climate in the country, the state of the book market, and reading practices.

Understanding the evolution of local history bibliography helps modern researchers better navigate the accumulated information heritage, avoid duplication of effort, and identify promising directions for further research. Problem-based historiography has always required a reliable source base. This article represents a first approximation to exploring the relationship between problem-based historiography and the history of local history bibliography. The purpose of this article is to present a historiographic overview of the development of local history bibliography in the RSFSR and the Russian Federation from the 1960s to the 1990s, identifying key issues and trends. The author examined the prerequisites for the emergence in the 1970s of the initial forms of historiographic analysis, which manifested themselves in the form of mentions and concise characteristics. The limited number of scientific works in this field is due, in particular, to factors of ideological control in Soviet science and the systemic crisis of the post-perestroika period. The study examined publications reflecting such historiographic topics as “Current Topics of Scientific Research as a Subject of Study of Historiography”; “Biographical Genre in Historiography”; “Issues of Periodization of Historical Processes”, etc. The significance of the “programmatic” article by Ya.G. Khaninson (1969) in the context of organizing scientific research, including on the history of Siberian bibliography, is noted. The publications by M.V. Mashkova (1973) and A.N. Buchenkov (1984) contain a review of historical and bibliographic research, covering the period from pre-revolutionary times to 1983. The development of the historiography of the history of local history bibliography in the 1990s is analyzed from a general scientific perspective due to the lack of works on this topic.

This article attempts to reconstruct the relationship between the writer A.L. Tolstaya (Bostrom) (1854–1906) and her publishers. The aim of this study is to analyze the particular case of a provincial writer’s entry into the world of metropolitan literature and to identify general patterns of interaction within the writer-publisher paradigm at the beginning of the 20th century. Having visited St. Petersburg several times in the first half of the 1900s, the writer A.L. Tolstaya (Bostrom), who lived in Samara and wrote for the local press, made considerable efforts to enter the so-called big literature. For this purpose, she met editors and publishers, corresponded with them, attended literary evenings, and so on. Her circle of acquaintances and correspondents during these years included, among others, the St. Petersburg publishers N.N. Morev, O.N. Popova, and L.M. Wolf. This cooperation resulted in the release of several individual books by the writer, as well as the publication of her works in periodicals for children and adolescents. The correspondence between A.L. Tolstaya and her husband, A.A. Bostrom, allows us to trace all stages of this interaction, based on a thorough examination of the unpublished family epistolary of A.A. Bostrom and A.L. Tolstaya, which is kept in the Department of Manuscripts of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in the Samara Literary Memorial Museum named after M. Gorky.

The aim of this article is to systematize materials published in professional library journals devoted to book and reading promotion in Russian libraries from 2022 to the first half of 2025. The study employs the method of secondary analysis of data from the information resource Reviews of Publications on Reading Issues, created by specialists of the Reading Centre of the National Library of Russia. The identified materials are categorized according to key trends in library activities aimed at supporting reading. The article highlights the most significant theoretical, analytical, and methodological publications devoted to the promotion of books and reading and identifies the most common forms of library work and event topics. Based on the analysis, the most effective directions of activity, from the perspective of library specialists, are identified. The article also raises the question of the need to develop criteria for assessing the effectiveness of libraries’ activities in promoting reading. The novelty of the study lies in identifying the main trends in reading-support activities as an indirect indicator of librarians’ perceptions of the effectiveness of work in this area. The practical significance of the article lies in identifying the most promising areas of cultural and leisure activities related to reading promotion.

The article examines the literary works that attracted the attention of Vasily Rozanov. The central thesis is that literature became a key element in the formation of Rozanov’s intellectual identity. Rozanov read novels and critical essays and incorporated images from these works into his own worldview. The aim of the study is to explain the mutual influence of reading and writing practices in Rozanov’s works. The study employs the hermeneutic method and the analysis of binary oppositions to reveal the symbolic structures of Rozanov’s perception. Rozanov interpreted the texts of N.V. Gogol, A.S. Griboyedov, and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin as forms of harsh satire. Historical interpretation helps to contextualize these readings within the changing literary and cultural environment of the early twentieth century. Rozanov argued that Russian writers had a negative influence on public opinion. At the same time, the article highlights the specificity of Rozanov’s intellectual experience. He found himself between the lost era of post-reform Russia and the emerging realities of the twentieth century. Apocalyptic teleology became especially relevant in the context of the First World War. The values of autocracy and traditional life served as interpretative frameworks through which Rozanov attempted to explain the contradictions of modernity. Thus, literature functioned both as a source of identity formation and as a means of rationalizing contemporary events.

The article analyzes two editions of The Birth of Mal-Khadari (1935), published by the West Siberian branch of the Association of State Book and Magazine Publishing Houses (OGIZ). This work is the first artistic essay about Khakassia written by Evgeny Filippovich Ivanov (pseudonym “Filippych”) and was also translated into the Khakass language. The essay reflects important processes in the history of Soviet Khakassia. Shortly after publication, however, the entire print run was withdrawn for ideological reasons, resulting in a significant loss to the book culture of the region. More than eighty years later, thanks to the work of the author of this article, the texts have been made available in the electronic library of Khakassia.

The purpose of the article is to introduce into scholarly discourse the marginalia of A.E. Popko, preserved in the 1913 issue of the journal Bulletin of Knowledge from the collection of the Scientific Library of Tomsk State University. The calculations in the margins of the article on Fermat’s theorem not only characterize the level of mathematical training of a zemstvo teacher, but also demonstrate the breadth of intellectual inquiry that could be developed by individuals who engaged in self-education through printed materials. The biography of A.E. Popko, a native of a peasant family, who became a teacher at the Tomsk State Pedagogical Institute, demonstrates how the mechanisms of social mobility that had developed in Russia by the beginning of the 20^th century worked. Further progressive development of this process was interrupted by social revolutions and wars.

In the context of the digitalization of major information channels, the preparation and publication of high-quality illustrated printed editions is motivated not only by practical considerations but also by reputational goals. Such publications often become significant events in the academic community and attract the attention of cultural institutions, government representatives, and the general public. Therefore, examining the publishing practices of university libraries remains a relevant task.

The aim of this article is to present the experience of publishing a series of catalogue-albums of Soviet posters preserved in the Research Library of Tomsk State University. The author examines the principles used to compile poster selections for each publication, the genre and thematic characteristics of the selected materials, the specifics of their descriptions, and the ways in which the published materials have been used after publication.

The production of these books is considered within the broader context of the systematic cataloguing, restoration, and digitization of documentary heritage, as well as publishing activities dedicated to significant historical dates. The article concludes by assessing the role of catalogue-albums in preserving and disseminating information about visual historical sources.