Orientalist and the Book: Reflections on Changing Role of Libraries in the Information Field of the 21st Century
Немчинов Виктор МихайловичВосточная аналитика '2016, №2, с.7-17
scholars have special almost humane relations with professional literature
that they collect for their studies. After decades of academic work their personal
libraries may become a source of valuable information about their owners and
their respective fields of study. Spheres of interest, book marks, epigraphy, textual
study, - all this becomes a debating matter and a stock for further research in memorial
libraries of prominent Orientalists that had donated their valuable personal
pin-pointed book collections to the Institute of Oriental studies or to other institutions
they had worked in. Researchers that work on tenure with their books gain a
lot of insights and can substantially advance very special historical attributions and
discoveries. These written sources stimulate knowledge transfer and give special
flavor to the school of Russian Oriental studies. Dialoguing both with written
sources, within and between generations stimulates talented research. This has
become the rationale for setting an international study platform “Diaversity” that
promotes rapid feedback in specialized knowledge transfer. This seems important in
the time of Russian academic reform that deals with tangible and intangible capital.
And libraries in social sciences encounter a number of threats: shortage of free
space and financing, mortal danger of fire and water leakage. But they also offer
scholars luxury of personal communication with history and this gives us a promising
chance for leapfrog development.