Humenchuk A. Higher Library and Information Education: Evolutionary Transformations and Patterns of Development

The dissertation is devoted to the theoretical and methodological foundations’ development of the higher library and information education of Ukraine system modernization in the conditions of the European integration and society’s digitalization. Its results and conclusions form a coherent doctrine on the effective strategically important problem’s solution of the specialists for the information industry of Ukraine training quality improvement, which is not only of general professional, but also of great social and cultural importance. The work studied the scientific views evolution on the problems of the library specialists training improvement and the peculiarities of the system of higher library education in Ukraine components institutionalization, with the level of the topic’s theoretical development been established. The reproduction of the scientific opinion’s historiography regarding the institutionalization of the higher library education in Ukraine system’s components made it possible to identify three stages of developing the library staff training problems improvement: the initial one (1904–1990), which gradually generalized the experience of the first specialized educational institutions; the stage of systematic theoretical generalizations (1991–2014), during which there was conducted a thorough scientific research aimed at developing conceptual models for improving the quality of library and information education; the stage of modernization transformations (2014 — till present), which substantiated the innovative vectors of restructuring levels in library and information education in the conditions of digitalization and European integration. New ideas about the features and vectors of the modern system of higherlevel library and information education modernization as a component of the European educational and digital communication space are introduced into the scientific circulation of library professions. It is substantiated that at the current stage of the higher library and information education of Ukraine system’s development, the most important factors influencing the pace and direction of its modernization are the information and cultural policy of the state, the integration of higher education of Ukraine into the European educational space, global digitization and internetization of the document and communication sphere; acceleration of the information transmission pace, fundamentally new amount of the educational audience that can study online, the emergence of new promotion channels and the provision of educational services, massification and virtualization of the higher education, a large-scale Russian military aggression against Ukraine. There is developed a five main stage periodization of the higher library education in Ukraine system’s emergence and development: the stage of its inception on the territory of Ukraine (XIX — beginning of XX century); the stage of the higher library education state centralized system’s formation (1930– 1960s); the stage of the regional library scientific schools’ institutionalization as the basis of the higher library education’s fundamentalization (1970–1990s); the stage of diversification of educational directions for the library and information specialists training in the conditions of the society informatization (2000–2020s); the stage of the higher library and information education system modernization under the influence of the European integration and digital transformations (2021 — till now). An important result of the higher library education in Ukrain e system’s evolution is the formation of powerful regional educational and scientific librarianship schools (Kharkiv, Kyiv, Rivne, Lviv), the functioning of which creates an institutional and cognitive infrastructure for the preparation of qualified staff for scientific and pedagogical activities in the field of information, library and archival sciences. The summarized global experience of the library and information education development testifies to the dialectical interdependence of the processes of universalizing the educational programs’ content and deepening their flexibility, variability, which, in the conditions of the society documentary communications system components’ digital convergence, ensures specialists’ competitiveness and demand on the labor market. It is proven that the profiles’ diversification of the educational programs for training librarians also depends on the national characteristics and cultural traditions of the country, the degree of democratization of its highly qualified staff training system. The work reveals regularities of the higher library education system’s development: the complexity of the specializations’ content and diversification of the library specialists training, the preservation of the library science component and the strengthening of the education content’s interdisciplinary nature in the conditions of digital convergence.