The concept of an automated system for Internet monitoring of scientific and technical information in solving problems of supporting decision-making processes in various subject areas is presented. The functional components of the system are three main subsystems: a subsystem for linguistic and statistical analysis of text documents, a subsystem for their lexico-semantic processing, and an information retrieval subsystem. The tasks solved by these subsystems are formulated. The first subsystem ensures the creation of linguistic dictionaries of the Internet monitoring system, as well as the calculation of the information content of words, sentences and texts. The second subsystem solves the problems of summarizing, categorizing and evaluating the tone of text documents and messages. The third subsystem performs indexing of web pages, their documentary search and factual search for messages on the found web pages.

The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of English language metadata of 18 Belarusian academic periodicals on agricultural topics, including the following information about the authors: last name, first name, patronymic; individual identifier; email; academic degrees and titles; affiliation, positions, postal address of the organization. As a result of the study, the problem of unification of the English language information about the authors both between the periodicals and within them was discovered. Some disagreements were connected with formatting, for example, the order and use of abbreviations when indicating the last name, first name and patronymic of the authors. Other disagreements were related to the translation of the metadata from Russian into English. The translation of academic degrees of the authors of publications caused the greatest disagreements. The participation of scientific libraries in solving this problem was proposed through the organization of interaction between authors, editors and library and information specialists on the issues of preparation of the English language metadata of publications, including information about the authors.

The article deals with the history of the origin and development of science communication in the Antiquity (8th century BC – 5th century AD). The paper examines the main spaces of science communication of the two civilizations that were actively developing at that time, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. A definition of science communication is given and its general structure is described. The general features of the development of science in the period of Antiquity, its genesis and history are outlined. Science is considered in the broad historical socio-cultural context of its historical development. It is noted that the emergence of science becomes possible only at a certain stage of development of society, in countries with developed agriculture, and urban culture. The article describes the origins and formation of norms of oral communication among scholars, i.e., rules for conversations, discussions, and dialogues, as well as the emergence of theoretical science. The role of itinerant scientists in the dissemination of scientific knowledge is shown. It is argued that the inclusion of natural and mathematical sciences in the course of education was an important stage in the development of scientific communication in ancient Greece. The paper analyzes the peculiarities of the participation in the science communication of its time of the famous ancient Greek philosophical schools, such as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle. The article describes the emergence of a new form of scientific communication: the tradition of exchanging letters between scientists. The contribution of the Museion of Alexandria and the Library of Alexandria to the development of science and scientific communication of the Antiquity era is analyzed. The role of ancient libraries in the system of scientific communication of the analyzed era is considered.

The article presents the results of the analysis of information on funding sources in papers with Belarusian affiliation published in highly cited international journals in 2012–2021, refereed by Scopus and Web of Science. The research potential of the National Academy of Sciences, the Ministries of Education and Health in the received grants is presented. A comparison of the structures of scientific publications of the academic and university institutional sectors has been carried out, revealing almost the same specialization of domestic scientific research. The major funds that support research have been identified by departmental affiliation. The active participation of specialists of academic and university science in international research in the field of physics and materials science was noted. Over the past decade, a significant increase in the number of projects with the participation of researchers from medical scientific and practical centers has been revealed. A separate block on publications of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus based on InCites data is presented. It is concluded that the Belarusian Republican and Russian Foundations for Basic Research remain the leaders in terms of quantitative funding of domestic research.

The results of a study conducted at the Central Scientific Agricultural Library (FSBI CSAL) on the analysis of the content of the web pages of agricultural universities in Russia have been presented. The study is a part of the second stage of the research of the websites of research institutions of the agro-industrial complex of Russia. In 2022 the analysis of the websites of research institutes of the agro-industrial complex, including sections or web pages of their libraries, was carried out. Websites form the web environment of each institution and the information space of the industry. Information about the availability of the library was found on 50 websites out of 54 agrarian universities: in the headings of the 1st level (20%), 2nd level (54%), 3rd level (22%) and 4th (4%) levels. Different approaches to the formation of headings representing the resources and services of libraries and the degree of completeness of their description have been revealed. A search on the library web page is mainly conducted by sections and headings (43 web pages (86%)), but on 8 web pages it is possible to search in the search box (16%). The site maps on the web pages of libraries have not been identified. There are 39 web pages with free access to all resources, but 11 require a login and password to enter the Electronic Catalog and/or the Electronic Library. The most common headings on the web pages of libraries have been identified, while only 29 libraries (58%) have information about their services, 3 libraries (6%) have only information about the availability of printing, bibliographic and other services. It was found that important information for the user can be placed in headings of the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th level, which reduces its accessibility; not all the content and not all the functions traditionally carried out by the university library are available remotely; the web pages have almost no graphics and images, which makes the page little attractive to young people. Recommendations for improving the quality of library web pages are presented.

The search for up-to-date information in national, foreign and international information systems is the most important part of the library-information and reference -bibliographic service of scientists and specialists of the Belarusian Agricultural Library. To carry out a high-quality search on a certain topic, the content of the request is formulated by means of an information retrieval language, i.e. a search profile is created. One of the linguistic tools used for indexing and searching scientific information in international information retrieval systems and covering a wide range of agricultural, food industry and related issues is AGROVOC, the multilingual thesaurus the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The Belarusian Agricultural Library started developing its Belarusian version in 2022. At the initial stage the tasks for determining the priority subject categories (areas) of the subsequent terminological research were performed. In this regard, the staff of the Scientific and Bibliographic Department of Remote User Service processed requests from remote users of the Belarusian Agricultural Library for 2021 based on the creation of search profiles of thematic queries using the descriptors of the AGROVOC thesaurus. In total, 1,920 requests for 2021 from 626 users from 32 organizations were processed. It is noted that as a linguistic toolkit the AGROVOC thesaurus has a sufficient set of descriptors to cover various aspects of agrarian science, fishery, forestry, food and other related areas, while at the same time there is potential for its content addition and extension. The results of the content analysis of thematic queries indicate that scientific research and development of Belarusian specialists today are aimed at raising the agro-industrial complex of the country and obtaining competitive agricultural products.

The article deals with the publication of books in the Belarusian language at the beginning of the 20th century. Petersburg and Vilna were the main centers for publishing Belarusian books. Later the book association «Minchuk» which was publishing the journals «Luchynka» and «Vyasyolka» appeared in Minsk. St. Petersburg publishers made a great contribution to the development of the Belarusian book printing industry. In Vilna, the publication of books in the Belarusian language was carried out by the publishing houses «Nasha Niva», «Nasha Khata», «Palachanin», and the «Belarusian Publishing Association». The largest group of books in the Belarusian language are literary and fiction publications, including poetry, prose, and dramatic works. Thanks to the activities of publishing houses organized by the natives from the Belarusian lands in Petersburg and Vilna, the first collections of works by famous Belarusian writers were published. Textbooks, popular science books on the humanities and the natural sciences, and practical manuals on agriculture were printed in the Belarusian language, in addition to works of fiction. The educational editions were mainly represented by books for reading, as well as arithmetic and history textbooks. Providing Belarusian readers with the opportunity to obtain knowledge about astronomy, mathematics, medicine, agricultural sciences, and humanities from books in their native language contributed to the expansion of education and the development of science and culture in Belarus.

Scientific libraries initiate and organize professional events. International scientific conferences are the most prestigious and large-scale in terms of audience coverage and geographical spread. As a rule, such events have a certain frequency and theme. The Belarusian Agricultural Library has been holding the International scientific conference "Libraries in the information society: preserving traditions and developing new technologies" since 2014 once every two years in December. Since 2016, each conference has its own theme of the year, dedicated to the most relevant direction in the library and information sphere of the current time. The article provides summarizing and analytical information on the results of five conferences (2014–2022), concerning scientific and organizational aspects of the preparation and holding of these events, as well as the preparation, publication and promotion of conference proceedings.