The theatre life in West Siberia: an analysis of research information compound

The of information-communication technology development has effected all aspects of the modern society life. The theater does not stand aside as well - complicated techniques of sound and light transmission arrear, 3D installations replace the traditional scenery, there are various genres of performances, an actor new type. Currently, researches on the theater as a complex social phenomenon are not numerous and relate mainly to the capital cities, the study bases of theatrical life are materials of sociological surveys, mass media, blogs and charts. 2019 is declared the Year of Theatre in Russia, it may become a novel milestone in the theatrical art development and attract attention of new scholars and specialists. The article objective is to analyze the information basis of regional theater science. The study information base is the documents retrieval from the regional bibliographic database (DB) “Scientific Sibirica” generated by the State Public Scientific technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences: its thematic section “Literature, art of Siberia and the Far East”, category “Theater” since 1990 to the present. The analysis of the material focuses on the peculiarities of the theatrical life in regional centers of West Siberia. The information volume amounted to more than 14,000 records at the beginning of 2019, mainly in Russian. A gradual increase in the documents number by the early XXI century is observed, the annual growth of the information array is 200-400 documents. Periodicals - newspaper and magazine articles (90% of records) - prevail in the specific composition of documents, as they most quickly respond to the regional cultural life events. It should be noted that information about receiving awards and titles by theatrical persons and groups, premieres, tours, festivals, competitions is reflected mainly by the regional and central media. Monographic works are few, but diverse on their content. This group of publications includes memoirs, biobibliography, dissertation abstracts, textbooks, scientific monographies. Geographical headings of documents in DB “Scientific Sibirica” allows selecting information on Siberian cities, where the undisputed leaders in highlighting the theatrical life are Novosibirsk (more than 5,000 publications), Omsk (about 1,200 works), Kemerovo and Tyumen (more than 600 works). The DB records are systematized by four theatrical art genres: dramatic theater, musical theater, puppet theater, folk theater. More than half of the retrieval materials represent the development of the dramatic theater, which is the evidence of this theater genre popularity in Siberian cities. The fourth part of publications are devoted to the regional musical theaters, the least documents deal with puppet and folk theaters. It can be explained, first, by their scarcity in Siberian cities, and second, by insufficient media attention to them. A DB category “Personality” allows making materials compilation on prominent theatrical figures in regions. Thus, the DB “Scientific Sibirica” is a useful online product for information support of the theatre phenomenon study in regions of Siberia and the Far East.

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