Agricultural Biographics v. Agricultural Biographistics: Concepts, Resources of Information, and Reflexive Potential
Agricultural Biographics v. Agricultural Biographistics: Concepts, Resources of Information, and Reflexive Potential

Summary/Abstract: The authors of the article explore the concepts ‘agricultural biographics’ and ‘agricultural biographistics’, proposing an interpretation of the terms. ‘Agricultural biographistics’ is defined as a full palette of portraits of agricultural scientists, sectoral bibliographical and biobibliographical reference publications, and the creation of electronic resources of biographical information about eminent figures in the field of agriculture. ‘Agricultural biographics’ is a distinct branch of historiography focusing on biographical research about agricultural scientists, and the theoretical and methodological foundations of biographical research of agricultural scientists. The article analyses the achievements in scientific bibliographical research of the Department of Biographistics at the Institute of History of Agrarian Science, Education and Technology of the National Scientific Agricultural Library of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine (NSAL NAAS). The authors argue that much of specifically historical research exists alongside inadequate theoretical studies on its foundations, which, accordingly, calls for the development of some aspects of agricultural biographistics. The article also outlines the theoretical and methodological visions in the biographies of agricultural scholars, considering also the architectonics of the publications, the types/models of biographies, and methodological approaches. Here a particular emphasis is on innovative methodological concepts of the biographies of agricultural scientists: the application of a sociocultural approach, the network model, methods of synergetics, the concept of ‘emotional community’, methodology of mental maps, etc. The article proposes potential future directions for the development of agricultural biographistics—among others, the potentional of developing terminology, developing a methodology for conducting research on agricultural scientists, approbation of the newest methods for the study and compilation of biographies, attracting interdisciplinary theoretical value, expanding the database on biographical sources, developing methods for the use and analysis of sources, and selecting optimal methods for their study.

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