The web pages of libraries of 57 universities were studied. It has been found that only on the websites of 2 universities there are no data about the library. 2 libraries of agricultural universities do not have a web page on the Internet, and 10 libraries on the webpage have information about the availability of electronic catalog (EC) and its description, but there is no link to it, 2 have a link that does not work. The purpose of the study was to determine the status of the reference-retrieval aid presented on the webpages of libraries of agricultural universities. The main element of the reference-retrieval aid on the webpages of libraries of agricultural universities is EC. Libraries of agricultural universities strive to display their collections as fully as possible in the EC, including information about books, dissertations, periodicals, rare books, and works of employees, university publications, educational and methodological publications, Graduation qualification projects. Most libraries use modern software in the EC, which allows for a multiaspect search under various criteria, and use information retrieval languages and dictionaries as search tools. A system of prompts, instructions for working with electronic resources and EC, posted on the webpages of 26 libraries, helps the user to correctly compose a retrieval prescription and effectively use resources. Free access to the EC is organized in 30 libraries, in 8 - by authorization, login and password, which allows access to the EC in 24/7 mode, but 2 libraries can only access to it from the reading room. It is concluded that in modern conditions the EC and databases are the main elements of the reference-retrieval aid of a library of an agrarian university. The general picture of the availability and status of the EC in the libraries of agricultural universities is presented: composition, their search capabilities, accessibility, etc.

The main goal of the article is to consider issues dealing with cataloguing processes researched by foreign, Soviet and modern Russian experts. Quality management based on the results of similar studies plays an important role in the functioning of electronic catalogues and data exchange in the system of corporate cataloguing. The paper presents the aspects in which the cataloguing quality can be investigated and shows that the most attention of specialists is focused on the determining the quality of the library catalogues (currently - electronic library catalogues) as well as the bibliographic and authority data they contain. In such cases, experts talk about low quality of cataloguing system. The article also provides a view on the relative quality in different information library systems. During the quality research various methods are used, among which the main place is taken by qualimetry tools. The key problem in research methodology is a problem of selection of criteria by which quality of catalogues as well as data they contain is determined. It is established that research in the field of cataloguing quality is currently being conducted, but there is a lack of professionals’ attention paid to these kinds of studies

The article is devoted to the staff of the underground newspaper ‘Zarya’, the organ of the Brest regional committee of the Communist Party of Byelorussia, which was published during the Great Patriotic War on the territory of the Brest region temporarily occupied by Nazi invaders. Biographical information about all the staff of the newspaper: editor V.F. Kaliberov and correspondents A.M. Pripotnev and A.I. Sirotin, typesetters N.K. Logvina and G.N. Zhuravlev, and typist M.N. Ponomareva. It is shown that the underground newspaper was published under difficult and dangerous conditions: the staff of ‘Zari’ often had to change their location because of bombing and shelling by the Nazi occupants of the partisan zone where the editorial office was located. All the printing equipment was carried by the Zarya workers, and upon arrival at the new place, they immediately started producing the next issue of the newspaper. The newspaper was published without violation of the issue schedule. It is shown that all the staff of the underground ‘Zarya’ not only published the newspaper, but also took an active part in the partisan fighting. The information about the government awards they were honoured with is given. The article provides information about the participation in the Great Patriotic War of the closest family members of four ‘Zarya’ workers – V.F. Kaliberov, A.M. Pripotnev, N.K. Logvina and M.N. Ponomarenko. The data on the participation in the Great Patriotic War of the family members of A.I. Sirotin and G.N. Zhuravlev are currently unknown to the authors. The post-war activity of the ‘Zarya’ staff is revealed, and it is shown that five out of six members of this team connected their life with journalism or printing, and two – A.M. Pripotnev and N.K. Logvina – devoted their whole life to work in the Brest regional newspaper ‘Zarya’.

The article considers the peculiarities of the development of the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Agrarian Sciences Series" in the historical context. The main stages of the development of the journal were analysed: stage I - a union scientific journal (1963-1991); stage II - a republican scientific journal (1992- 2001); stage III - an international scientific journal (2002- present). The processes of promotion and popularisation of the periodical in the world scientific space are shown. Special attention is given to its topical position in the context of the information infrastructure of global science. The main scientometric and statistical data are given. It is concluded that the journal "Proceedings of he National Academy of Science of Belarus. Agrarian Sciences Series" for its more than 60-year history occupied a worthy niche in the scientific informanion space, entered the scintific infrusctructure complex as an integral element in the formation, development and enchancement of the authority of the national agrarian science.

The article presents data on figures in the field of education, the information about whom was collected by a team of Smolensk and Belarusian researchers based of Russian and Belarusian publications in the course of work on the project «Belarusian Smolyans, Smolensk Belarusians». Examples of 55 persons whose activities contributed to the development of education in Smolensk and Belarus are given. Among them are the following: representatives of higher and secondary vocational education, teachers of secondary schools, as well as natives of Belarusian lands who applied for admission to the Smolensk Teachers' Institute in 1914-1919. It is noted that among ‘Belarusian Smolyans’ and ‘Smolensk Belarusians’ the education sector workers form quite a numerous category.