Biography as a phenomenon of science and culture

The article offers a new generalizing conceptual vision of biography as an intellectual and spiritual cultural phenomenon. This vision unites scientific research, biographical side in social communication, distribution of biographical knowledge, informational and publishing work, in particular, libraries' activities in processing and integrating biographical and biobibliographical sources. It also includes various forms and directions of biographical/autobiographical work, literary and amateur. Developed in the course of research activities of the Institute of Biographical Research of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine, such a synthetic view allows a holistic understanding of the essence of biographical research. As for today the latter, in its quality and scope, does not fit into the theoretical frame formed for it within certain discourses in the 20th century. It was presented, most notably in history, philosophy, literary and cultural studies, as mainly a study of theory and method of biographical research, a biographical approach to history and culture, or as a special humanities branch. These theoretical approaches, vaguely connected, retain some significance in terms of research objectives in separate branches but are no longer able to provide a view of modern biography, its aims and prospects, as a whole. Updating the ideas about biographical research is extremely important in understanding its modern significance, as well as for adopting new forms of biographical work, and distribution of biographical knowledge as a valuable cultural part.