Review of the monograph by V.Kh. Akaev "Sufism in the Context of Arab-Muslim Culture. Monograph. Grozny: State Unitary Enterprise "Book Publishing House", 2020. 523 pp."

Монографическое исследование В.Х. Акаева представляет собой самостоятельное авторское исследование, посвященное проблемам генезиса и эволюции суфизма в глобальном и региональном измерении. Отмечается, что суфизм, сформировавшись в лоне арабо-мусульманской культуры, как религиозно-мистический феномен проник в духовное пространство народов Северного Кавказа. Его отличительной чертой в рассматриваемом регионе стало то, что суфистские братства сумели встроиться в структуру традиционных этносоциальных институций ряда северокавказских народов. Однако деформация общественно-политической жизни Северного Кавказа в начале 1990-х гг. привела к активизации деятельности радикалистов и экстремистов в Чечне и Дагестане. В рецензируемой монографии осмыслен деструктивный потенциал религиозного радикализма, который активно продвигался идеологами ваххабизма, оперировавшими концептами шахидизма. Определены принципиальные расхождения ваххабизма и суфизма в интерпретации теологической доктрины ислама. Отдельного внимания заслуживает и авторское описание социально-политического портрета асоциальных акторов радикализма. Делается вывод о том, что наиболее эффективным инструментом профилактики религиозного радикализма является диалог культур, нацеленный на смягчение культурных конфликтов и обеспечивающий их активный обмен при сохранении культурно-исторической самобытности. The monographic study of V.Kh. Akaev is an independent author's research on the problems of genesis and the evolution of Sufism in the global and regional dimension. Having formed in the bosom of Arab-Muslim culture, Sufism as a religious-mystical phenomenon penetrated the spiritual space of the peoples of the North Caucasus. Its distinctive feature in the region under consideration was that Sufi fraternities managed to integrate into the structure of traditional ethnosocial institutions of a number of North Caucasian peoples. However, the deformation of the socio-political life of the North Caucasus in the early 1990s led to the activation of the activities of radicalists and extremists in Chechnya and Dagestan. The peer-reviewed monograph makes sense of the destructive potential of religious radicalism, which was actively promoted by Wahhabism ideologists who operated on the concepts of Shahidism. Fundamental differences between Wahhabism and Sufism in the interpretation of the theological doctrine of Islam were determined. The author's description of the socio-political portrait of asocial actors of radicalism deserves special attention. The research shows that the most effective tool for preventing religious radicalism is the dialogue of cultures aimed at mitigating cultural conflicts and ensuring their active exchange while preserving cultural and historical identity.

The Sixth World Professional Forum “The Book. Culture. Education. Innovations” – “Crimea–2021”. The review

The work of the Sixth World Professional Forum “The Book. Culture. Education. Innovations” (June 5–13, 2021, Sudak, Republic of Crimea, Russian Federation) is reviewed; its themes and topics are discussed: library mission in the digitization era; pandemic impact on libraries; prospects for library and information community; national information systems; libraries collaboration with research and educational organizations; modern competences of library specialists; partnerships of national libraries, etc. The focus is made on the following events: The Twenty Seventh International Conference «Libraries and information resources in the modern world of science, culture, education and business», The Third Scientific and Educational Symposium “Building and developing the modern digital environment for education and science”; The Fifth Industry Conference “Book publishing and libraries: Vectors of cooperation”. The authors also give overview of discussions and presentations at the open press conference, the work and conclusions of the central discussion site, Day of Crimean Libraries, Day of Rospatent, The Third Scientific Conference “Scientometrics, bibliometrics, open data and publications in science”, The Third International Conference on the global ecological problems, the research and practice events held within the framework of the Forum, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies, and Forum plenary session.

Digitization, Prediction, and Market Efficiency: Evidence from Book Publishing Deals

Digitization has given creators direct access to consumers as well as a plethora of new data for suppliers of new products to draw on. We study how this affects market efficiency in the context of book publishing. Using data on about 50,000 license deals over more than 10 years, we identify the effects of digitization from quasi-experimental variation across book types. Consistent with digitization generating additional information for predicting product appeal, we show that the size of license payments more accurately reflects a product’s ex post success, and more so for publishers that invest more in data analytics. These effects cannot be fully explained by changes in bargaining power or in demand. We estimate that efficiency gains are worth between 10% and 18% of publishers’ total investments in book deals. Thus, digitization can have large impacts on the allocation of resources across products of varying qualities in markets in which product appeal has traditionally been difficult to predict ex ante. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.

Towards proper evaluation of book publishing in the social sciences

Books are important in the social sciences. Monographs and edited books allow for presenting original research based on methodologies or forms of collaboration that the format of the journal article does not serve as appropriately. Books are also used to engage directly with society. This chapter first introduces book publishing in the social sciences as a diversity of genres, purposes, and audiences. We then limit the scope to peer-reviewed scholarly book publishing and describe how publication patterns differ among the disciplines of the social sciences in the dimensions of books versus journal articles and national versus international publishing. Then we focus on the structure of the scholarly book publishing market with particular attention to developments towards open access publishing. The chapter ends with our suggestions for principles that can guide proper evaluation of book publishing in the social sciences.

Professional publishing and Lithuanian books in the first two-thirds of the 19th century in Lithuania: The case of the Zawadzki firm

Successfully profiting from textbook publishing as the typographer at Vilnius University, Józef Zawadzki (1781‒1838) established one of the most important and most successful book publishing, production, and distribution companies of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century in the territories of former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealt. The Zawadzki firm represented the new category of professional publishers. Over the first seventy years of the firm’s existence at the firm’s expense were published 122 Lithuanian books, as well as printed about 50 Lithuanian publications at their authors finances. The attitude of the members of Zawadzki family regarding the publishing of Lithuanian books essentially changed. While the Józef Zawadzki was indifferent towards them, in the middle of the 19th century Adam Zawadzki (1814‒1875) outcompeted other professional book publishers and distributors, and monopolized the publishing of Lithuanian books in the Samogitian Diocese, becoming not only the most important publisher of Lithuanian books, but also their printer and distributor. The successful realization of Adam Zawadzki’s business plans was partly due to his longstanding contacts with the most active figures of Lithuanian written culture, with whom he maintained a new form of cooperation based on authorial royalties, partly due effectively distribution of published matter, using first stationary bookstore in the periphery, located in the west of Lithuania (which served as a retail and wholesale trade enterprise), various ways of non-stationary book trade, services of a commercial library and advertising. Owing to Adam’s efforts, the Zawadzki firm made a significant contribution uniting main forces of authors and publishers of Lithuanian books in 19th century Lithuania, renewing the repertoire of Lithuanian books, as well as giving Lithuanian book publishing, production and distribution features characteristic for a modern business. A model of dealing with censorship through illegal publishing, developed with the publication Apej brostwą błaiwistes arba nusiturieima, was used throughout all the forty years of the press ban and helped raising several generations of literate Lithuanians and bringing Lithuania and Lithuania Minor closer together.

What has the COVID-19 pandemic taught us about academic book publishing so far? A view from North America

In mid-March 2020 a rash of emergency “lock-down” orders fromState governors confined millions of North American workers to their homes.Students suddenly needed to flip from classroom-based to remote instruction.Scholars in the humanities could no longer get to archives. Movementrestrictions cut off the opportunity to travel for fieldwork and conferenceattendance almost overnight. As publishers and librarians dealt with theravages of COVID-19 on their personal lives and relationships, they alsoembarked on a massive experiment in transforming access to scholarlyinformation. Rather than being a unique benefit only available to members of alibrary subscriber’s “gated community,” access to hundreds of thousands ofbooks and journal articles suddenly became free-to-read globally. That access,of course, had severe limitations. It was temporary (most programs expired atthe end of August 2020), only available to users with an internet connection,and far from comprehensive in its coverage. However, a massive experiment wasstill underway, and the results are proving transformative for publishers andlibraries. So, what did we learn about humanities scholarship and itspublication? This article explores some emerging themes.

The Spread of Lutherance in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Its Influence on the Education Development and Music Culture

The purpose of the article is to determine the influence of Lutheranism on education and musical culture in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The research methodology includes cultural and historical analysis, which made it possible to analyze and investigate the influence of Lutheranism on musical culture in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Source studies and music-theoretical methods were used during the search and analysis of church-singing collections. The biographical method of research was used to systematize information about the life and work of theologians, composers and theorists. The scientific novelty of the research is the thorough analysis of the Lutheranism influence on education, book publishing and musical art. The first church chanting collections have been identified, in which a gradual transition from monody to polyphony is traced. Conclusions. In the process of studying the influence of Lutheranism on education and musical culture in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it was established that one of the main ways of introducing Protestant ideas was the education of gentry and bourgeois Ukrainian youth in Western European Lutheran universities. The competition between Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant schools that existed in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania contributed to the development of education in the country. In the 16th century, Vilno was a printing centre of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where printers competed with each other, publishing books in different languages and with opposite religious positions. During this period, thanks to the Lithuanian Protestants, church chanting collections were published. The chants in the first collections combined the stylistic tendencies of Protestant chorales, Czech reformers, and the traditions of local craftsmen.