"Slavic Studies and Slavic Librarianship" Revisited: Notes of a Former Slavic Librarian

Abstract

This article revisits the author’s essay in Solanus on the state of Slavic librarianship at the turn of the twenty-first century in order to assess how the profession has changed in the interim. Trehub notes that the single most important effect of the proliferation of new library information technologies has been a gradual shift in emphasis from curation to creation. The library may no longer be the first stop in a student’s research, but it remains the preferred venue for study, collaboration, social interaction, Internet use, and access to and help with specialized resources. The job of librarians—including Slavic librarians—is to build on their comparative advantage in these areas and re-integrate libraries into the students’ information workflow. The author suggests that the best way to maintain Slavic studies’ viability as a discipline is to participate more fully and be represented more prominently in the technology-driven scholarly digital initiatives that are transforming librarianship in general.