History of the Scientific Community in Reference Publications: To the 300th Anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences

A brief overview of the exhibition “History of the Academy of Sciences in Reference Publications: To the 300th Anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences”, launched in the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences in February 2024, is given. The characteristics (with examples) of the main types of reference publications are given: official reference books, encyclopedias, language dictionaries, reference books for various purposes, biographical and bio-bibliographic dictionaries, while the nature of information in reference publications varies from ordinary to purely scientific. The presented reference manuals are indicators of the level of development of Russian science, reflect the need of scientists to summarize the results of research and bring (in a concise form) these results to the scientific community. As the history of the scientific book shows, reference publications are also evidence of the completion of a certain stage of scientific research, which gives them special value.