The library community of our country suffered a great loss: in the 84th year a well-known Belarusian scientist, the founder of a scientific school in the field of bibliography, doctor of pedagogical sciences, Professor Vasily Leonchikov passed away. He made an invaluable contribution to the development of the Belarusian bibliography of the second half of the 20th and early 21st century.
Vasily Leonchikov was born in 1937 in the village of Berezovka in the Slavgorod district of the Mogilev region. He graduated from the Cultural and Educational School named after Krupskaya, library faculty of the Minsk State Educational Institute named after Gorky (1962). He worked as an inspector of the district department of culture, director of houses of culture in Cherikovsk and Slavgorod districts, head of one of the military libraries of Minsk.
In October 1962 he became a lecturer in the department of bibliography, a senior lecturer and deputy dean of the library faculty (1964). He studied at the graduate school of the Moscow State Institute of Culture, where he defended his dissertation on the Ph.D. in Teaching Sciences on the topic "General retrospective bibliography of books of Belarus: History and Theoretical Issues" (1969). It was the first fundamental scientific study in Belarus on the problems of the national national retrospective bibliography.
In 1971, Vasily Leonchikov was appointed dean of the library faculty first at the Gorky Teachers' University in Minsk, then in 1975 at the Minsk Institute of Culture. In 1983 he was elected professor and head of the Department of Bibliography (the Department of Theory and History of Information and Document Communications) was elected at BSUKI.
The creative approach to pedagogical activity has become a characteristic feature of the scientist. For the first time in the history of the national higher library education he developed the course "Belarusian bibliography", read it for many years and made it fundamental for the training of practitioners and scientists.
In 1988, Vasily Leonchikov defended his doctoral thesis on "System of bibliographic information of the Union Republic: Theoretic and Methodological Problems" in Moscow.
Vasily Leonchikov's scientific interests were very broad: the history of the national bibliography; Bibliography theory; The current state of the Belarusian bibliography; Library communication problems Personal information culture pedagogy of higher library education, etc.
The scientist published about 250 works. The distinctive features of all the works by Vasily Leonchikov were the thoroughness of the methodological and factual basis, the reliability of research goals and scientific reasoning, theoretical and practical significance.
His outstanding scientific potential was embodied in the scientific and educational school he founded in 1994, whose representatives work in Belarus and outside our country. He was also one of the organizers of postgraduate studies at BSUCA, where he was elected chairman and vice-chairman of the boards for the protection of dissertations on the degrees of candidates and PhDs.
He was a member of the scientific and technical council of BSUCA and the Board of the Faculty of Information and Document Communications, was a member of the editorial board of many scientific publications.
The scientist made a great contribution to the creation of the Belarusian Library Association, was its first president (1992-1994) and an honorary member. In 1993 he was elected an academician of the International Academy of Information at the Un-Un (Moscow), in 1996 he was a member-correspondent of the Belarusian Academy of Education. His name is included in the dictionary "2,000 Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century" (2005) of the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, in the directory "Who's Who on the Academic Olympus" (2004) of the International Academy of Informatics at the UN.
Vasily Leonchikov was awarded the Order of the USSR "Sign of Honor" (1976), the badge of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus "For contribution to the development of the culture of Belarus" (2004), numerous medals and honorary certificates for his scientific and educational activities.
Vasily Leonchikov connected scientific and professional relations with leading libraries and information institutions in the field of bibliography and library business of Belarus and abroad. Employees of the National Library of Belarus remember with great respect the years of cooperation with Vasily Leonchikov, note his high professionalism, desire to share his deep knowledge with students and colleagues.
Biographical information about the scientist is also available in the online encyclopedia "Belarus in Persons and Events" and the database "Scientists of Belarus", information about his publications can be found on the electronic catalogue of the NLB.
Bibliology Research Department
