Historical outlook of modern library science

The purpose of the article is to highlight the main historical stages of the formation and development of foreign and Ukrainian library science, proposing a definition of the term «library science», outlining the structure, interdisciplinary connections, and scientific periodicals of modern library science. The research methodology consists in applying the methods of scientific analysis, synthesis, and generalization, which allowed us to identify, investigate, and generalize information about library science. The historical-logical method made it possible to investigate the formation of scientific views on library science; the terminological method allowed us to define the term «library science»; the structural method allowed us to outline the structure. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the actualization of research on library science in the context of clarifying its historical origins, object, subject, and structure. The opinion is expressed on the change in the object of modern library science and the urgent need to write a textbook on library science. Conclusions. Library science as a science has come a long way in its development, from advice on creating a library and the emergence of library thought to a complex system of knowledge. It began to develop intensively only at the beginning of the 20th century. The object of library science is the library, the subject is the study of processes, patterns of the emergence, formation, functioning and development of libraries. It is quite likely that in the near future the object of library science will not be the library, but the library social institution. The structure of modern library science has a general theoretical and theoretical-applied level, consists of theory, methodology, techniques and history of library work, applied library science. It has a developed terminological system, specific research methods, numerous connections with other sciences. The beginning of the 21st century for Ukrainian library science was marked by a number of original studies that require generalization and design in a new modern textbook on library science.