Rural Libraries of Russia in 2014-2023: the Results of the National Library of Russia Monitoring

The article objective is to attract the attention of librarians to the negative trend of reducing the network of rural libraries and out-patient service points in rural areas. To achieve it we have analyzed the state of the network of rural libraries of the Russian Federation in the ten years’ dynamics (2014–2023), basing on monitoring of the public library network in Russia, carried out by the National Library of Russia while implementing the All-Russian corporate project “Central libraries of Subjects of the Russian Federation” to create a full-text database of the same name. The authors consider the importance of rural libraries, their functions and role in the culture of rural territories. We have noted negative trends characteristic for the library sphere in the countryside, and listed their objective causes. Attention is focused on problems, which are facing rural libraries and marked in the Strategy for the librarianship development in the Russian Federation until 2030.