Transformation of libraries into infrastructure institute of creative industries

Creating and promoting modern creative products requires appropriate infrastructure. The project of the Ministry of Culture of Russia «Genius loci», created to implement the tasks of developing creative industries, consider the huge potential of public libraries as an infrastructure institution for the development of creative industries. The project identified model, modernized libraries, and determined the need to assign curators to each library who conduct educational seminars and form modern competencies of producers in creating, promoting and distributing products of creative industries. This contributes to the transformation of model and modernized libraries into an infrastructure institution, due to the emergence of new functions, employees, and educational technologies in creative industries. This process requires scientific substantiation of their essence. The article analyzes publications on theoretical approaches to defining the concept of «Genius loci», provides a comparative analysis of the activities of libraries in Krasnoyarsk Krai and the Republic of Crimea as participants in the «Genius loci» project. The study made it possible to identify problems in the transformation of libraries into infrastructure institutions for the development of creative industries. They will be further used for the scientific substantiation of proposals for improving the activities of libraries as infrastructure institutions.