Situation of information professionals in Russia is quite uncertain. This is not so much a problem of getting posts at educational institutions. It is expressed mostly in a decline in the process of intellectual, psychological and material opportunities available to young specialists. A diploma in librarianship has lost much of its former value. Simultaneously, existing extension system in Russia has become very deficient. There may still exist certain need for libraries, however, the library specialists must raise the question themselves. The formerly quite advanced system of scientific and technical information in Russia experienced a crisis and has not yet recovered. Many libraries and information centers are not properly financed. There is a decrease in the number of qualified staff, but also a decrease in the demand for scientific and technical information. This is the case with CSAL (Central Scientific Agricultural Library) as well as with many other libraries.

The network units of the 720 agricultural libraries in Russia:

• Central Scientific Agricultural Library of Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences - the main information methodological and coordination center

1. Agricultural libraries of Central Region, Ural, North Caucasus (394 libraries)

   • 188 libraries of research and development institutes
   • 125 libraries of agricultural colleges
   • 48 libraries of High Schools
   • 33 libraries of extension courses

2. St. Petersburg Scientific Agricultural Library (173 agricultural libraries of North-East and North-West regions)

   • 37 libraries of research and development institutes
   • 107 libraries of agricultural colleges
   • 29 libraries of extension courses

3. Central Scientific Agricultural Library of Siberian Department of Russia Academy of Agricultural Sciences (153 agricultural libraries of Siberia and Far East)

   • 68 libraries of research and development institutes,
   • 53 libraries of agricultural colleges,
   • 14 libraries of High Schools,
   • 18 libraries of extension courses

During the last 10 years the number of staff in scientific agricultural libraries in Russia has dropped from 4,200 to 3,600. Proper management of library and information professionals has become one of the most important aspects in successfully servicing the needs of scientists and agro-industrial complex specialists.

Presently CSAL is a scientific and coordinating information center within the system of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Russian Federation and Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. It takes an active part in information supply to a number of federal specialist programs, ARIS program, and various projects of libraries automation. CSAL strives to provide timely information. It carries out tasks of indexing, abstracting and etc. Electronic Catalogue has been operational as of 1992, and has so far compiled some 400,000 bibliographic records. As of 1995 the library has been making abstracts for CABI and IFIS. In 1996 it started to publish a veterinary abstract journal, in 1998 Ecological Security in the Agro-industrial Complex journal. The processing of food problems documents is currently in making. In 1998 the library has began to use the Internet and has prepared a Web site with the AGROS database that contains some 830,000 records. The Web site presents also a digest magazine "Farmer", which is another information product of CSAL.

Some other activities involve preparation of current systematic indexes "Agricultural Literature", and registration of the national edition of "Agriculture" that contains information about documents in 30 languages received by CSAL. Annotations in Russian are prepared as well. As of 1998 the electronic versions of these indexes have been made. It has been a library's tradition to publish bibliographic indexes of prominent scientists in the field of agriculture.

The library collections have recently stabilized at some 3 million documents whereas the library staff decreased from 270 to 142. The number of computer technicians, however, grew from 8 in 1992 to 65 in 1999.

The work of our librarians has became more intense and the requirements, as to their qualification level, higher. Better results, in spite of drop in the number of staff, were achieved by stabilization of the staff structure. Training and education are highly encouraged. Forms of intellectual and psychological stimulation include seminars in the country and abroad, theoretical and practical scientific conferences, workshops or business trips in the largest Russian and foreign libraries and information centers, studies in obtaining better under-graduate education (correspondence and evening classes), and post-graduate studies.

In the period 1991-1998 the number of specialist holding graduate and post-graduate degree rose from 4,4% to 7,6% whereas the yearly number of papers presented at various conferences grew from 19 to 36. The above percentage of staff with a higher degree probably presents an optimum.

The possibility of working and studying at the same time allows the younger workers to feel confident about the future. Preparation of papers for seminars and conferences also presents an important intellectual stimulus at the CSAL. Annually, the staff participate at more than 40 events of this kind, and thus increase their professional methodological and research experiences. They learn to analyze, generalize, and communicate on the professional level. International workshops are, due to the lack of resources, more difficult to attend, however, some of the specialists do manage to participate in these kind of events, e.g. Web-masters training.

In 1992 CSAL was recognized as a scientific and research institute. It has since then been required for some of the librarians to participate in research activities and to publish articles. The CSAL created favorable conditions for creative work what resulted in an increase of scientific publications. These went up to 50 in 1998 as opposed to only 10 in 1991.

Employees try to increase their qualification due to the policy of the higher the category the higher the wage and the post they can hold. The share of employees with high qualification has been rising constantly. In Russia there are 18 categories of job classification. The category system has been called "a single tariff scale". At CSAL the share of low classification posts (categories 1-8) has dropped from 10 to only 3.5% since 1993. In the same time the share of high category post (13-18) has risen from 44 to 80%. In 1991 in the library there was only one person with a scientific degree. In 1998 there were nine.

Principal forms of material incentives:

• increase in a qualification category of a person in question
• extra bonus for the use of foreign language at work
• extra bonus for a scientific degree ·
• extra bonus for complex and time-consuming tasks
• possibility to do some extra work for additional bonus (applicable to employees with high qualification)
• possibility of participating in the activities financed from other sources (federal programs, grants, etc.).
• participation in temporary creative groups (Internet group, Web-master).

In 1991 the percentage of employees who received extra payment for extra work was 48; in 1998 it was already 96.

Only recently has the principle of uniform wages been abandoned. Now the new creed goes: the better you work the more money you get. As a result, the allowances of some employees have exceeded their basic wages for as much as 100%. Also, most of the library staff received some financial aid through Agro-industrial sector.

Money will always play certain role in motivating the workers. However, libraries have never been considered very lucrative places, so librarians are ready to be rewarded by creative satisfaction rather than by money. Particular attention should therefore be placed upon psychological and intellectual motivation, by also keeping in mind, nevertheless, the financial component.