Despite obvious and fundamental differences, contemporary library issues strikingly familiar to those of the west also beset the Soviet library world--issues that so far have been bridged in only technical apolitical areas. Governmental insistence on the centrality of ideology to library service remains an international stumbling block.…

Examined statistical data, structural changes in librarianship, and professional commitment to determine how the status of women in libraries has changed from 1976-96. Found an increase in the salary difference between women and men, more library directors are male in a profession that is more than 80% female, and more men in full-time faculty…