Journal articles on the topic 'Library of Congress. National Union Catalog'

My Purpose in this brief presentation is to offer a summary of developments in the field of Middle Eastern and Islamic bibliographic studies. Examples (and they are only examples of what is a widespread recognition of the importance of bibliography in the scholarly enterprise) are drawn from various fields of activity, from the immense Library of Congress to the efforts of a lone bibliographer at her PC in Denver. I have also tried to give an international flavor with an example of the important work being done in Istanbul. I have appended the names and addresses of the bibliographic projects to which I refer in this presentation.The jewel in the crown, so to speak, of the bibliographic effort of the Library of Congress is the Near East National Union List, a catalogue of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish language books and serials in libraries in the United States and Canada.

Abstract: The Hellenic Library Union Catalog (HLUC) is one of the projects that were developed as a result of the relocation of the National Library of Greece (NLG), as a part of Action 2 "Development of Digital Services" and was fully funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. It is an information system that aims to integrate and highlight all the collections from the Greek libraries in one single catalog. It was designed and implemented by the NTUA Annex of the Hellenic Academic Libraries Link, in collaboration with the National Library of Greece. It essentially organizes an open access collection of high- quality bibliographic data and aims to promote, amongst other things, rare, special and other types of bibliographic material. All Greek libraries are invited to participate.Currently HLUC is in a pilot phase. So far, more than 50 libraries from Greece and Cyprus are participating and the number of participants is increasing. The objective of the pilot phase was to test the operation of the HLUC by controlling the entire workflow starting from the moment that the data is imported to the system, incorporated and presented via the HLUC environment. Also system failures will be identified and corrected and functions as well as the general infrastructure will be improved. During this pilot phase, system reports will be sent to the member libraries aiming to receive their feedback, in order to improve the services provided by the HLUC. The purpose of this paper is to describe all the procedures followed for studying, designing and developing the system and to present how it works.

Since its foundation as a central body for British trade unions in 1868, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has been involved in the creation of the welfare state and public health, education and social services. It has helped to ensure legal rights in employment and an end to discrimination. The Labour Party was established by the TUC so that working people could have their own representatives in Parliament. The TUC has played an important role in international affairs, and union representatives have sat on public bodies and government advisory boards at national and international level.

The article gives a brief overview of research on the problems of preparing union catalogs; it shows that the creation of the national union catalogs’ system is a strategic direction for the library and information science development in Russia. The paper characterizes Database (DB) «Siberian and Far Eastern book. XVIII century - 1930: a union catalog» as an integral part of the Russian national bibliography created by the Department of Scientific Bibliography of the State Public Scientific Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Providing information on the availability of publications in the collections of book depositories, the DB opens access to the collections of libraries and archives of Siberia and the Far East for a wide range of researchers-historians. Union catalogs of Siberian and the Far Eastern books as a part of the Russian retrospective national bibliography contribute to preserving the cultural and intellectual heritage of the country, making it accessible to modern and future users. The article demonstrates possibilities of DB using as a research tool, and a historical source. The authors present the analysis results of the DB documentary flow, some comparative results of studying book business development in Asian Russia in preand post-revolutionary periods.

This article replicates a previous study that investigated the proportion of bibliographic records from the National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints in the OCLC WorldCat database and expands it to search a similar-sized sample of records in the RLIN database as well. The author seeks to determine the impact that the merger of the RLIN and OCLC databases will have on the ability to locate catalog records for older materials, and whether there are still significant numbers of library materials for which there are no online bibliographic records. Entries for non-Roman language materials were not included in the study.

The digital cataloguing experience of Presidential Library is discussed. The integrated e-collection comprises digital copies of library materials, archival documents and museum objects, which requires designing methods for describing entries new to library preservation. The Presidential Library’s interdepartmental working group has developed principles and approaches toward integrating presentation and access to the library, archival, and museum resources into the single catalog in accordance with existing international standards. The Presidential Library acts as a methodological center developing special methods for describing diverse information resources. Methodological publications by Presidential Library are considered the logical extension of RUSMARC Application Examples guidance series intended for Russian bibliographizing institutions. The Presidential Library’s work within the framework of the National Standardization Program, National Electronic Library and the union catalog of electronic resources is also discussed. The Library participates in IFLA UNIMARC permanent committees and IFLA Subject Analysis and Access Section. The Presidential Library is an educational center for digital content cataloguing for libraries, and holds training work-shops. It enrolls university graduates in generating the descriptive metadata. The prospective vectors in cataloguing are examined, e. g. designing model description of digital collections and Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) implementation.

The digital cataloguing experience of Presidential Library is discussed. The integrated e-collection comprises digital copies of library materials, archival documents and museum objects, which requires designing methods for describing entries new to library preservation. The Presidential Library’s interdepartmental working group has developed principles and approaches toward integrating presentation and access to the library, archival, and museum resources into the single catalog in accordance with existing international standards. The Presidential Library acts as a methodological center developing special methods for describing diverse information resources. Methodological publications by Presidential Library are considered the logical extension of RUSMARC Application Examples guidance series intended for Russian bibliographizing institutions. The Presidential Library’s work within the framework of the National Standardization Program, National Electronic Library and the union catalog of electronic resources is also discussed. The Library participates in IFLA UNIMARC permanent committees and IFLA Subject Analysis and Access Section. The Presidential Library is an educational center for digital content cataloguing for libraries, and holds training work-shops. It enrolls university graduates in generating the descriptive metadata. The prospective vectors in cataloguing are examined, e. g. designing model description of digital collections and Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) implementation.

This article is a sales pitch for pictures, even though art librarians already value visual materials highly. A decade’s advances in online access at a major documentary picture provider, the Library of Congress’ Prints and Photographs Division, should encourage librarians to visit the online United States national library often, and also to offer more of their own collections through the World Wide Web. Despite the beneficial digital image navigation features introduced into the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC), many improvements are still needed and there is a long list of desirable future developments. Reference librarians, catalogers, curators, digital conversion specialists and web designers are all invited to contribute to online reference aids as well as online catalogs, to help people succeed more often in finding pictures.

In the years following the 2003 conference on “Exposing Hidden Collections,” held at the Library of Congress—and the subsequent publication of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Task Force on Special Collections’ white paper entitled Hidden Collections, Scholarly Barriers: Creating Access to Unprocessed Special Collections Materials in America’s Research Libraries—many institutions and repositories have made concerted efforts to address the formidable challenges involved in “exposing” unprocessed and/or underprocessed collections. Exemplary efforts range from a national program initiated by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation “to identify and catalog . . .

The article presents the main areas of cooperation of three national libraries of Russia in the field of normative and legal regulation and standardization of library activities; organization of joint research and practical events; implementation of publishing, audiovisual and other educational projects; improvement of state library statistics and state tasks performance assessment system; development of the National Electronic Library; development of the system of national electronic catalogues; preparation of the II International Bibliographic Congress; maintenance of union catalogues and databases; release of bibliographic publications.

SummaryObjective: To identify the breadth of informatics sub-discipline terms used in the literature for enabling subsequent organization and searching by sub-discipline.Methods: Titles in five literature sources were analyzed to extract terms for informatics sub-disciplines: 1) United States (U.S.) Library of Congress Online Catalog, 2) English Wikipedia, 3) U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) Catalog, 4) PubMed, and 5) PubMed Central. The extracted terms were combined and standardized with those in four vocabulary sources to create an integrated list: 1) Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), 2) Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), 3) U.S. National Cancer Institute Thesaurus (NCIt), and 4) EMBRACE Data and Methods (EDAM). Searches for terms in titles from each literature source were conducted to obtain frequency counts and start years for characterizing established and potentially emerging sub-disciplines.Results: Analysis of 6,949 titles from literature sources and 67 terms from vocabulary sources resulted in an integrated list of 382 terms for informatics sub-disciplines mapped to 292 preferred terms. In the last five decades, “bioinformatics”, “medical informatics”, “health informatics”, “nursing informatics”, and “biomedical informatics” were associated with the most literature. In the current decade, potentially emerging sub-disciplines include “disability informatics”, “neonatal informatics”, and “nanoinformatics” based on literature from the last five years.Conclusions: As the field of informatics continues to expand and advance, keeping upto-date with historical and current trends will become increasingly challenging. The ability to track the accomplishments and evolution of a particular sub-discipline in the literature could be valuable for supporting informatics research, education, and training.

During his life, the Rev. Dr. Orlando E. Costas made significant contributions to the literature of missiology and theology. Though he was only 45 years old at the time of his death, he personally authored over 100 books and articles, and made over thirty contributions (e.g., chapters, articles, prologues) to the books of other people from around the world. His own interests were varied, but centered mostly on mission, evangelism, and Latin America. This bibliography is an attempt to collect and record his writings, all in one place. It is offered as a tribute to his life and ministry. Wherever possible, searching aids have been included. Examples are the Library of Congress cataloguing numbers (for most of the books) and the Reigner Recording Library Catalog numbers (for the sound recordings at the Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia).

This article describes a research project that included a designed experiment and statistical analysis to sample and estimate the proportion of records in the 754 volumes of the National Union Catalog Pre-56 Imprints (Mansell) that also appear in OCLC WorldCat. The authors randomly selected a sample of records from Mansell and then searched the records in OCLC WorldCat. The results show that 72.2 percent of the records in Mansell were found in WorldCat and 27.8 percent of the sampled Mansell records were not (95% confidence interval [26%, 30%]). Because a significant proportion of works held by libraries is not found in OCLC WorldCat, Mansell remains a valuable library resource.

The activity vectors of the Scientific Agricultural Library as a head library within the network of the country’s research agricultural libraries are reviewed. Information resources, mission, strategic objective, priority tasks and the main directions of development of the Central Scientific Agricultural Library are described. The features of the proprietary database “AGROS” comprising annotated and abstracted records of documents in national and foreign sources on the widest subject scope are analyzed. The functionalities the Centralized Electronic Library System and the Union Catalog of the libraries of Russian agro-industrial state research institutions are characterized as a corporate bibliographic resource. The main vectors of scientific research carried out at the Scientific Agricultural Library in accordance with the national academies’ of sciences program of fundamental studies for 2013-2020, par. 1 “Modern economic theory and the principles for the country’s agro-industrial complex in the circumstances of globalization and integration of world economy”, are explored. The issues of collection acquisition, control and preservation, standards and guidelines, HR, and user information awareness are highlighted.

The library holds 87 phaleristic awards 1919–1939, from Austria, Great Britain, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Sweden, Ukraine, USA. Among these awards we can conditionally distinguish the following thematic groups: Ukrainian and Ukrainian related awards, foreign phaleristic, international professional congresses. In these groups it is possible to distinguish subgroups representing different individual aspects of social life in Ukraine and in other countries in 1919–1939. Ukrainian and Ukrainian related honors include: Ukrainian-language honors made in Ukraine; honors of the Ukrainian Diaspora; non-Ukrainian-language honors made on Ukrainian lands. Foreign phaleristics are represented by thematic subgroups: state distinctions (Serbian Order of Saint Sava, Polish medals, etc.); non-state public awards; phalleristics of public organizations (the Red Cross, associations of librarians, doctors, electricians, technicians and others); German and Polish phaleristics on the occasion of a plebiscite in Silesia in 1921; monuments of cultural and artistic events; business awards (ASEA, Leica, Germany) and more. Distinctions of international professional congresses concern mainly medical organizations: I General Congress of Slavic Physicians in Warsaw 1927; The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Congresses of the Union of Slavic Dermatologists (in Warsaw in 1929, in Belgorod in 1931 and in Prague in 1934); The Third International Pediatricians Congress, London, 1933; IX International Congress of Dermatologists in Budapest 1935. Available in the library’s collection a memorial award of the International Congress of the World Union of Electricity Producers and Distributors in Paris, 1928 (two variants of decoration with different mounting methods). Keywords: phaleristics, awards, international professional congresses.

Greek libraries have experienced a tremendous evolution towards modernization during the last few years. The lack of tradition in libraries and the existence of an educational system based on the single textbook did not favor until recently the development of libraries in Greece. However, the European Community action aimed at enabling European libraries to play an important role in the information market, and the Community Support Framework, through which libraries could be funded at the national level, allowed for a dynamic set of actions for Greek libraries. All types of libraries, academic, public and school are moving ahead – 500 school libraries were established in secondary schools alone. In the academic libraries, the horizontal action can be proud of the creation of a consortium called HEAL LINK that shares journal subscriptions and will also operate a Union Catalog of bibliographic records. Library‐related organizations such as the National Documentation Center and the National Book Center, offer additional support in this movement of progress. This paper describes these initiatives and others.

<p class="Abstrak">Katalog induk nasional (KIN) memegang peran mendasar dalam pengembangan perpustakaan digital terintegrasi nasional. KIN merupakan hasil konsolidasi katalog dari setiap perpustakaan anggota. Perpustakaan Nasional RI (Perpusnas), yang bertanggung jawab untuk membangun KIN, saat ini menggunakan sebuah platform tunggal dalam konsolidasi tersebut. Semua perpustakaan anggota harus menyediakan sistem yang sama, baik perangkat keras maupun perangkat lunak, untuk bisa berkolaborasi dalam KIN. Arsitektur monolitik seperti ini sangat berpotensi menghalangi perpustakaan yang belum siap dengan sistem yang dibutuhkan untuk berkontribusi dalam pengembangan KIN karena membutuhkan biaya yang tidak sedikit. Artikel ini membahas arsitektur <em>Observable</em><em>-SOA</em> untuk menjadi alternatif arsitektur yang fleksibel sehingga memungkinkan beberapa perpustakaan anggota yang berjalan pada berbagai platformnya masing-masing yang saling berbeda untuk bisa melakukan interoperasi secara efektif dalam mengembangkan KIN. Arsitektur tersebut memanfaatkan konsep yang ada pada SOA (<em>service-oriented architecture</em>) dan pola perancangan <em>Observer</em>. Arsitektur yang diusulkan, berikut algoritme dari beberapa layanan (<em>service</em>) dasar, telah berhasil diuji fungsionalitasnya dalam melakukan konsolidasi KIN dan pencarian katalog pada lingkungan simulasi yang merepresentasikan interoperasi antara Perpusnas dengan setiap perpustakaan anggotanya. Lingkungan uji tersebut melibatkan 4 perpustakaan digital yang diimplementasikan dengan menggunakan 3 sistem perpustakaan terintegrasi yang bersifat <em>open source</em>. Arsitektur <em>Observable</em><em>-SOA</em> ini bisa menjadi pengganti arsitektur monolitik yang saat ini digunakan oleh Perpusnas untuk mengembangkan KIN tanpa harus membebani perpustakaan anggota dengan berbagai perangkat tambahan.</p><p class="Abstrak"> </p><p class="Abstrak"><em><strong>Abstract</strong></em></p><p class="Abstrak"><em>The national union catalog (KIN) plays a fundamental role in developing a national integrated digital library (NIDL). KIN is consolidated from the catalogs of its various constituent libraries. The National Library of Indonesia (Perpusnas), which is responsible for building KIN, is currently using a single platform built for such consolidation purposes. All constituent libraries must provide the same system, which includes hardware and software, to collaborate in KIN. This monolithic setting may prevent some libraries, which are not ready with the required system, to contribute in developing such KIN since it costs a lot. This article discusses the Observable-SOA architecture to provide a flexible setting allowing some constituent libraries with various different platforms to effectively interoperate in developing such catalog within a NIDL. Such architecture leverages the Observer design pattern and SOA (service-oriented architecture) concepts. The proposed architecture and some basic services algorithms were successfully tested for its functionalities in consolidating KIN and searching a particular catalog within a simulated environment representing the interoperability between the Perpusnas and its constituents. Such environment involved 4 digital libraries implemented by using 3 open-source integrated library systems (ILSs). This Observable-SOA architecture may be used to replace the monolithic architecture currently used by the Perpusnas to develop KIN without burdening the constituent libraries with various additional systems</em></p>

The article investigates the contribution of Anatoliy Petrovych Aleksandrov (1903-1994) to the study of the Dnipro rapids. Biographical and comparative methods were used during writing this article. The rapids of river Dnipro occupy a prominent place in the history and culture of Ukraine. And because of this, they are constantly attract attention to themselves, even after their flooding.Researchers of the Dnipro try to fully reproduce the picture of a river as much as possible. But it seems that the experience of A.P. Aleksandrov have not been studied yet. A.P. Aleksandrov lived a bright and extraordinary life. He became an outstanding physicist and renowned scientist in the field of atomic energy. His achievements were highly praised by his contemporaries, who elected a scientist as president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1975-1986). In the study of his biographies, the main focus is on the scientific and technical aspects of it.Besides that, a fun and exciting scientist's hobby is beyond the detailed research – boat trips along the Dnipro river. Especially often he rested this way during living in Kiev (1903-1930 years). In the 1920's A.P. Aleksandrov had very busy life: he taught physics and chemistry at the labor school №79 (1923-1930), studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Kyiv People's University (1924-1930), conducted scientific research at the Kyiv X-ray Institute, falsified in the electro-technical bureau at a physical-chemical school club, etc. Still, he somehow managed to combine good with pleasure and had a chance to rest on the bank of Dnipro river on his lovely boat every summer. At first – near Kiev, and later – on the Dnipro rapids themselves. According to Aleksandrovs memories and documents from the archive of the Institute of Manuscripts of the National Library of Ukraine named after V.I. Vernads'kyy, we managed to establish that the scientist visited the rapids of Dnipro every summer during four years before it was flooded. At first, probably in 1926, he went to rapids with only one friend. They wanted to see them and, if possible, go down through them. In 1927-1929 as a photographer, he participated in the expedition of A.S. Synyavs'kyy, who was to explore the rapids before flooding. In 1927 the expedition shot a film about the rapids and the Dnipro hydroelectric power station. The expedition was held in the summer of 1930, but without Anatoliy Petrovych. In August 1930 he participated in the First All-Union Congress of Physicists in Odessa and later he moved to Leningrad. During the first trip to the rapids, A.P. Aleksandrov and his friend almost drowned at the Kodats'kyy rapids. Fortunately, friends quickly learned how to swim between granite rocks. At the same time, they not only went down the flow with a boat, but also rose against it. In historical studies, the ability to swim bottom-up dipper rapids up until recently was considered a very controversial issue. Ya.R. Dashkevych writes that in the annotation to the map of Lithuania Makovs'kyy-Radzyvil (1613) it is said that Dmytro Vyshnevets'kyy (about 1517 - 1563/1564) managed to reach the Cherkasy through the rapids (that is, from the bottom up). French engineer Hiyom Levaser de Boplan in his memories of the second half of the seventeenth century also wrote about his personal trip through the rapids of the Dnipro against the flow. O.S. Afanas'yev-Chuzhbyns'kyy in 1861 and Ya.P. Novyts'kyy in 1905, after personal visits to the rapids and communication with local pilots and fishermen, came to the conclusion that it was not possible to overcome the rapids against the flow. A.Kh. Lerberh in 1819 and Ya.R. Dashkevych in 2007 assumed that it was still possible. In 2000, the last pilot of the Dnipro rapids H.M. Omel'chenko (1911-2002) wrote very confidently that he and his father repeatedly swam across the rapids of the Dnipro from below upwards. Memoirs of A.P. Aleksandrov, published in 2002, greatly facilitate the above discussion. Unlike all his predecessors, he describes in detail the technique of swimming through the rapids from the bottom up and its rationale. The point is that the flow does not always flow down the rapids. By stones, it flows up with approximately the same force as it was before it was down. So to swim from the bottom up to the rapids, you need to swim through one of the stones (there flows flow from below upwards), gaining there some sort of a speed boost and cross the strip of ordinary flow to the next stone (up to 2 meters), and so on. So, the memoirs of A.P. Aleksandrova allows a significant advance in the many-year historical debate about the possibility of swimming on the rapids of the Dnipro against the flow. However, they do not prove that all evidence of such a voyage is true. In the long run, the author plans to test the methodology of the scientist in practice and expand the base of historical sources on swimming the rapids. He will also try to find photos and movies that were created in 1927-1929 with the participation of A.P. Aleksandrova.

The aim of the article is to describe psycholinguistic meanings of the word-stimulus “playfulness” in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. The main method of the conducted research was the psycholinguistic experiment. The sample according to the criteria “gender” (males and females – included both age groups) and “age” (18-35 and 36-60) included 1,600 respondents with 400 people in each sub-group of respondents. The overall number of reactions to stimulus “playfulness” comprised 1,600 associative reactions with 475 unique associations including word combinations and sentences, where 159 reactions have frequency over 1,316 individual associations, and 0 refusals. The semantic interpretation of the results of the free association test made it possible to single out 19 psycholinguistic meanings, 12 out of them accounted for more than 1%: 1) “cheerful and joyful state”, 2) “intention to attract the attention of the opposite or one’s own sex”, 3) “child-like spontaneity”, 4) “agility, physical activity of an animal”, 5) “daring and provocative behavior”, 6) “agility, physical behavior of a human being”, 7) “ease”, 8) “changeability”, 9) “behavior during a sexual intercourse”, 10) “carelessness”, 11) “mental activity”, 12) “deliberate deceit”. Taking into account the respondents’ verbal behavior, the following components of playfulness were identified: flirting, impishness, humor, fugue (eccentricity), ease, imagination. 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August 16–21, 1996, Montreal, Canada. (103-217). Ufimtseva, N. V. (2009). Obraz mira russkikh: sistemnost i soderzhaniie [Image of the world of Russians: the systemic characteristics and the content]. Yazyk i kultura – Language and Culture, 98-111. Yarnal, C., & Qian, X. (2011). Older-adult Playfulness: An innovative construct and measure­ment for healthy aging research. American Journal of Play, 4(1), 52-79. Yue, X. D., Leung, C. L., Hiranandani, N. A. (2016). Adult Playfulness, Humor Styles, and Subjective Happiness. Psychological Reports, 119(3), 630-640.

Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library and its classified catalog to the Library of Congress after the original library was burned in the War of 1812. He viewed the act of submitting his collection to the U.S. Congress as a means to inscribe his legacy and political agenda into the intellectual and cultural realm of the nation. Jorge Luis Borges was both a municipal librarian and the Librarian for the National Library of Argentina, as well as a prolific fiction and poetry writer. Borges’s fictions are a kind of catalogue in and of themselves, in which all books, all ideas, and all authors are cited, recited, ordered, and disordered. We put Jefferson into dialogue with Borges—each of whom we might regard as national librarians—to show how knowledge organization techniques frame and inform national and colonial imaginaries, and how monsters are produced in and by library collections and classifications.

Although still strongly intertwined, taxonomy and systematics are diverging more and more in their paradigms, methods, and agendas: it is not possible to consider them as synonyms anymore. While taxonomy remains an analytical science based on abductive reasoning (trying to find the historical pathways leading to present species delineations), systematics diverged as an information science since the rise of computers: summarizing, organising, and exposing taxonomical, biological, and ecological data, information, and knowledge in the most efficient ways, with respect to various targeted audiences. One could even consider synonymising biodiversity informatics with systematics instead! Schematically, this led to two different types of information systems: one dedicated to pure taxonomic and nomenclatural data; one oriented to record life-traits. Obviously, the latter must be built along reliable taxonomic backbones, therefore the former should have been built before the latter. It did not happen as exemplified in fishes by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS) and related, Catalog of Fishes, and FishBase, and later the databases of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), or for aggregators with Catalogue of Life and e.g., GBIF, Encyclopedia of Life. This has created some confusion for end users, “which system should I use” being their regular question with the invariable answer, “it depends”. In the absence of a formal preexisting taxonomic information system, each biodiversity information system has developed its own way to manage its taxonomic backbone with more or less impact of taxonomists. For fishes, we are not far from reconciling the various systems, and data to knowledge flows are becoming clearer, but it is not without unnecessary extra work. A real breakthrough is necessary to move from a collaboration stage to a cooperative stage, where systems are interconnected (not necessarily integrated) in such a way that the same taxonomic work is not repeated over and over to synchronise the systems. The difficulty is that taxonomic information systems must be designed for the needs of taxonomists, while their resulting classifications and the way they are exposed must fit the needs of systematics/biodiversity systems purposes, and by extension of the rest of scientific domains and the society in general. Conditions for this breakthrough to happen are discussed. The breakthrough does not reside in only one action but rather is the result of multiple simultaneous advances in the theory of taxonomy, its (mathematical?) formalization and informatics implementation, technology (although progress in that domain may be well in advance over others), data entry, networking, and sociology of science. The "potential taxon" concept (Berendsohn 1995) led to important theoretical progresses but its actual implementation lags behind in many systems, due probably to the huge effort of data entry it requires. Data entry is certainly a part that was neglected at the beginning of biodiversity informatics, because it has to be sustained endlessly, while the development of new systems was seen as more rewarding in time-limited frameworks. This has been corrected at least for occurrences and specimens, with the development of national and international digitization programs. Besides, the development of the Biodiversity Heritage Library and text extraction technologies is quite promising for taxon information. As in all complex situations with many interacting dimensions (e.g., fisheries management in ichthyology), progress must be balanced among all dimensions to have effective results for the overall domain. Among others, issues in sociology of sciences, for instance, must be addressed to make significant progresses. In particular the way data, information and knowledge are published, and jobs delineated and careers evaluated, must still be seriously reviewed in the light of information system development.

The article is focused on the study of the perception of Lesya Ukrainka, a famous Ukrainian writer, in contemporary Ukrainian society. The research is based on a free word association test held online with 200 respondents aged from 13 to 70. As a result of applying quantitative analysis of the associates and semantic gestalt method the authors singled out productive semantic zones concerning each of the stimuli. These zones presented an anthroponymic triad of personality identification related to the author’s names ‘Larysa Kvitka’, ‘Larysa Kosach’, and the pseudonym ‘Lesya Ukrainka’. The nuclear zones in each associative field manifest a tendency for uniformity. They are related to her professional activities, her works, elements of inner and outer portrayal, as well as of evaluative spectrum. The respondents have shown predominantly high levels of knowledge about Lesya Ukrainka’s personality, which is proven, in particular, by their reverse frequency reactions and peripheral character of zero reactions. A dominant positive evaluative spectrum of perception of Lesya Ukrainka, as well as productivity of individual associates of interpretational character, was also important. References Barnett, L. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 949-958. Bowman, J. (1987). Making Work Play. In G. A. Fine (Ed.), Meaningful Play, Playful Meanings (pp. 61-71). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Bundy, A. (1996). Play and Playfulness: What to Look for. In D.L. Parham & L. S. Fazio (Eds.), Play in Occupational Therapy for Children (pp. 52−66). St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Chapman, J. (1978). Playfulness and the development of divergent thinking abilities. Child: Care, Health and Development, 4, 371-383. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Play and intrinsic rewards. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15, 41-63. Dal, V. I. (2011). Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language: in four volumes. Publishing house: Drofa. Retrieved from: http://slovardalja.net/ Glynn, M., & Webster, J. (1992). The adult playfulness scale: an initial assessment. Psychological Reports, 71 (1), 83-103. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.71.1.83 Гордиенко-Митрофанова, И.В. (2014а). Лексикографическое значение слова «игривость» (подготовительный этап психолингвистического эксперимента). Психологічні перспективи, 24, 76-88. Гордиенко-Митрофанова, И.В. (2014b). Психологическое содержание лексикографических значений слова «игривый» (подготовительный этап психолингвистического эксперимента). Проблеми сучасної педагогічної освіти, 46 (3), 298-306. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2017a). Playful competence: the access code to the inner resources. Proceedings of the 15th European Congress of Psychology. Amsterdam, 11-14 July. (19) Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2017b). Humour as a component of ludic competence. Visnyk of H.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Psychology, 57, 40-56. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I. & Kobzieva, Iu. (2018). Concept “holy fool” in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. Psycholinguistics-Psiholingvistika, 24(1), 118-133. https://doi.org/10.31470/2309-1797-2018-24-1-118-133 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I. & Kobzieva, Iu. (2019). Gender- and role-specific differences in the perception of the concept “impishness” (based on the results of a psycholinguistic experiment). Psycholinguistics-Psiholingvistika, 25(1), 33-48. https://doi.org/10.31470/2309-1797-2019-25-1-33-48 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Kobzieva, Iu. & Silina, A. (2018a). Psycholinguistic meanings of the verbalised concept “holy fool” (based on the results of the psycholinguistic experiment). Vіsnyk of H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Psychology, 59, 18-34. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2527863 Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I., Kobzieva, I. & Sauta, S. (2019). Psycholinguistic meanings of playfulness. East European Journal of Psycholinguistics, 6(1), 19-31. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3371627 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Pidchasov, Ye., Sauta, S., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2018b). The problem of sample representativeness for conducting experimental and broad psychological research. Psycholinguistics-Psiholingvistika, 23(1), 11-46. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1212360 Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I. V., & Sauta, S. L. (2016). Playfulness as a peculiar expression of sexual relationships (semantic interpretation of the results of the psycholinguistic experiment). European Humanities Studies: State and Society, 1, 46-62. Retrieved from: http://ehs-ss.pl/czasopismo/EHS-SS-01-2016.pdf Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I. & Sypko, A. (2015). Playfulness as a relevant lexeme in the bilingual linguistic consciousness of Ukrainian people. East European Journal of Psycholinguistics, 2(1), 43-51. Retrieved from http://esnuir.eenu.edu.ua/bitstream/ 123456789/9355/1/eejpl_journal_2_1_2015_sypko_hordiyenko_mytrofanova.pdf Groos, K. (1976). The Play of Man: Teasing and Love-Play. In J. Brunner, A. Jolly, & K. Sylva (Eds.), Play, Development and Evolution (pp. 62–83). Middlesex, United Kingdom: Penguin Books. Guitard, P., Ferland, F. & Dutil, É. (2005). Toward a better understanding of playfulness in adults. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 25 (1), 9-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/153944920502500103 Кобзева, Ю., Гордиенко-Митрофанова, И., Гончаренко-Кулиш, А. (2020a). Определение шаловливости как компонента игровой компетентности через реконструкцию семантических элементов концепта «шаловливость». Проблеми сучасної психології, 47, 118-140. https://doi.org/10.32626/2227-6246.2020-47 Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Sauta S. (2020b). Psycholinguistic Features of Imagination as a Component of Ludic Competence. EUREKA: Social and Humanities, 2, 15-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.21303/2504-5571.2020.001128 Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Udovenko M., Sauta S. (2020c). Concept “humour” in the linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. European Journal of Humour Research, 8(1), 29-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.1.kobzieva. Караулов Ю. Н., Черкасова Г. А., Уфимцева Н. В., Сорокин Ю. А., Тарасов Е. Ф. Русский ассоциативный словарь. В 2-х т. Т. I. От стимула к реакции: ок.7000 стимулов. М.: ООО «Издательство Астрель»: ООО Издательство АСТ». Караулов Ю. Н., Черкасова Г. А., Уфимцева Н. В., Сорокин Ю. А., Тарасов Е. Ф. Русский ассоциативный словарь. В 2-х т. Т. II. От реакции к стимулу: более 100 000 реакций. М.: ООО «Издательство Астрель»: ООО Издательство АСТ». Ожегов, С. И., Шведова, Н. Ю. (2011). Толковый словарь русского языка. Москва: Мир и образование, Оникс. Попова, З. Д., Стернин, И. А. (2007). Семантико-когнитивный анализ языка. Воронеж: Истоки. Proyer, R. (2012). Development and initial assessment of a short measure for adult playfulness: The SMAP. Personality and Individual Differences, 53 (8), 989-994. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.07.018 Proyer, R. (2017). A new structural model for the study of adult playfulness: Assessment and exploration of an understudied individual differences variable. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 113-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.12.011 Raven, J. (2001). The Conceptualisation of Competence. New York: Peter Lang. Schaefer, C. & Greenberg, R. (1997). Measurement of playfulness: a neglected therapist variable. International Journal of Play Therapy, 6(2), 21-31. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0089406 Shen, X. (2010). Adult Playfulness as a Personality Trait: Its Conceptualization, Measurement, and Relationship to Psychological Well-Being. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Pennsylvania State University Library Catalog (OCLC No. 859524715). Shen, X., Chick, G. & Zinn, H. (2014). Playfulness in adulthood as a personality trait: a reconceptualization and a new measurement. Journal of Leisure Research, 46(1), 58-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2014.11950313 Стернин, И. А., Рудакова, А. В. (2011). Психолингвистическое значение слова и его описание. Воронеж: Ламберт. Tsuji, Hit., Tsuji, Hei., Yamada, S., Natsuno, Y., Morita, Y., Mukoyama, Y., Hata, K. & Fujishima, Y. (1996). Standardization of the Five Factor Personality Questionnaire: Factor structure. International Journal of Psychology, 31. Proceedings from the XXVI International Congress of Psychology Montreal, 16-21August (103-217). Уфимцева, Н. (2009). Образ мира русских: системность и содержание. Язык и культура, 98-111. Ушаков, Д. Н. (1935-1940). Толковый словарь русского языка: в четырех томах. Москва: Сов.энциклопедия: ОГИЗ. Yarnal, C. & Qian, X. (2011). Older-adult playfulness: an innovative construct and measurement for healthy aging research. American Journal of Play, 4 (1), 52-79. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ985548.pdf Ефремова, Т. Ф. (2000). Новый словарь русского языка. Толково-словообразовательный. Москва: Русский язык. Епишкин, Н. И. (2010). Историчесикй словарь галлицизмов русского языка. Словарное издательство ЭТС. Yue, X., Leung, C. & Hiranandani, N. (2016). Adult playfulness, humor styles, and subjective happiness. Psychological Reports, 119 (3), 630-640. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294116662842 Засекина, Л. В. (2008). Тенденції розвитку вітчизняної психолінгвістики: методологічний огляд проблем та окреслення шляхів їх вирішення. Retrieved from: Psycholinguistics-Psiholingvistika, 1. Retrieved from: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/psling_2008_1_2 References (translated and transliterated) Barnett, L. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 949-958. Bowman, J. (1987). Making Work Play. In G. A. Fine (Ed.), Meaningful Play, Playful Meanings (pp. 61-71). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Bundy, A. (1996). Play and Playfulness: What to Look for. In D.L. Parham & L. S. Fazio (Eds.), Play in Occupational Therapy for Children (pp. 52−66). St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Chapman, J. (1978). Playfulness and the development of divergent thinking abilities. Child: Care, Health and Development, 4, 371-383. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Play and intrinsic rewards. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15, 41-63. Dal, V. I. (2011). Tolkovyi Slovar Zhivogo Velikorusskogo Yazyka [Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language]: in four volumes. Publishing house: Drofa. Retrieved from: http://slovardalja.net/ Glynn, M., & Webster, J. (1992). The adult playfulness scale: an initial assessment. Psychological Reports, 71(1), 83-103. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.71.1.83 Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I.V. (2014a). Leksikograficheskoie znacheniie slova “igrivost” (podgotovitelnyi etap psikholingvisticheskogo eksperimenta) [The lexicographic meaning of the word “playfulness” (preparatory stage of a psycholinguistic experiment)]. Psykholohichni Perspektyvy − Psychological Prospects, 24, 76-88. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I.V. (2014b). Psikhologicheskoie soderzhaniie leksikograficheskikh znachenii slova “igrivyi” (podgotovitelnyi etap psikholingvisticheskogo eksperimenta) [The psychological content of lexicographic meanings of the word “playful” (preparatory stage of the psycholinguistic experiment)]. Problemy suchasnoi pedahohichnoi osvity − Problems of Modern Pedagogical Education, 46(3), 298-306. Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I.V. (2014c). Psikhologicheskaia interpretatsiia leksikograficheskogo opisaniia slova “igrivyi” [Psychological interpretation of the lexicographic description of the word “playful”]. Problemy Suchasnoi Psykholohii − Problems of Modern Psychology, 25, 83-98. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2017a). Playful competence: the access code to the inner resources. Proceedings of the 15th European Congress of Psychology Amsterdam, 11-14 July. (19). Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2017b). Humour as a component of ludic competence. Visnyk of H.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Psychology, 57, 40-56. Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I. & Kobzieva, Iu. (2018). Concept “holy fool” in the linguistic world-image of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. Psycholinguistics- Psiholingvistika, 24 (1), 118-133. https://doi.org/10.31470/2309-1797-2018-24-1-118-133 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I. & Kobzieva, Iu. (2019). Gender- and role-specific differences in the perception of the concept “impishness” (based on the results of a psycholinguistic experiment). Psycholinguistics-Psiholingvistika, 25(1), 33-48. https://doi.org/10.31470/2309-1797-2019-25-1-33-48 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Kobzieva, Iu. & Silina, A. (2018a). Psycholinguistic meanings of the verbalised concept “holy fool” (based on the results of the psycholinguistic experiment). Vіsnyk of H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University, Psychology, 59, 18-34. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2527863 Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I., Kobzieva, I. & Sauta, S. (2019). Psycholinguistic meanings of playfulness. East European Journal of Psycholinguistics, 6(1), 19-31. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3371627 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Pidchasov, Ye., Sauta, S., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2018b). The problem of sample representativeness for conducting experimental and broad psychological research. Psycholinguistics-Psiholingvistika, 23(1), 11-46. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1212360 Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I. V., & Sauta, S. L. (2016). Playfulness as a peculiar expression of sexual relationships (semantic interpretation of the results of the psycholinguistic experiment). European Humanities Studies: State and Society, 1, 46-62. Retrieved from: http://ehs-ss.pl/czasopismo/EHS-SS-01-2016.pdf Gordiienko-Mytrofanova, I. & Sypko, A. (2015). Playfulness as a relevant lexeme in the bilingual linguistic consciousness of Ukrainian people. East European Journal of Psycholinguistics, 2(1), 43-51. Retrieved from: http://esnuir.eenu.edu.ua/bitstream/ 123456789/9355/1/eejpl_journal_2_1_2015_sypko_hordiyenko_mytrofanova.pdf Groos, K. (1976). The Play of Man: Teasing and Love-Play. In J. Brunner, A. Jolly, & K. Sylva (Eds.), Play, Development and Evolution (pp. 62–83). Middlesex, United Kingdom: Penguin Books. Guitard, P., Ferland, F. & Dutil, É. (2005). Toward a better understanding of playfulness in adults. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 25 (1), 9-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/153944920502500103 Kobzieva, Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Goncharenko-Kulish, A. (2020a). Opredeleniie shalovlivosti kak komponenta igrovoi kompetentosti cherez rekonstruktsiiu semanticheskikh elementov kontsepta “shalovlivost” [Defining impishness as a component of ludic competence via restructuring semantic elements of the concept “impishness”]. Problemy Suchasnoi Psykholohii − Problems of Modern Psychology, 47, 118-140. https://doi.org/10.32626/2227-6246.2020-47 Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Sauta S. (2020b). Psycholinguistic Features of Imagination as a Component of Ludic Competence. EUREKA: Social and Humanities, 2, 15-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.21303/2504-5571.2020.001128 Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Udovenko M., Sauta S. (2020c). Concept “humour” in the linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. European Journal of Humour Research, 8(1), 29-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.1.kobzieva Karaulov, Yu. N., Cherkasova, G. A., Ufimtseva, N. V., Sorokin, Yu. A., & Tarasov, Ye. F. (2002a). Russkii Assotsiativnyi Slovar [Russian Associative Vocabulary], Vol. 1. Ot reaktsii k stimulu [From Reaction to Stimulus], ca. 100000 reactions. Мoscow: LLC Astrel Publishers; LLC AST Publishers. Karaulov, Yu. N., Cherkasova, G. A., Ufimtseva, N. V., Sorokin, Yu. A., & Tarasov, Ye. F. (2002b). Russkii Assotsiativnyi Slovar [Russian Associative Vocabulary], Vol. 2. Ot stimula k reaktsii [From Stimulus to Reaction], ca. 7000 stimuli. Мoscow: LLC Astrel Publishers; LLC AST Publishers. Ozhegov, S. I. & Shvedova, N. Yu. (2011). Tolkovyi Slovar Russkogo Yazyka [Dictionary of Russian Language]. Мoscow: Mir i Obrazovaniie, Oniks. Popova, Z. D. & Sternin, I. A. (2007). Semantiko-Kognitivnyi Analiz Yazyka [Semantic and Cognitive Analysis of Language]. Voronezh: Istoki. Proyer, R. (2012). Development and initial assessment of a short measure for adult playfulness: The SMAP. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(8), 989-994. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.07.018 Proyer, R. (2017). A new structural model for the study of adult playfulness: Assessment and exploration of an understudied individual differences variable. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 113-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.12.011 Raven, J. (2001). The Conceptualisation of Competence. New York: Peter Lang. Schaefer, C. & Greenberg, R. (1997). Measurement of playfulness: a neglected therapist variable. International Journal of Play Therapy, 6 (2), 21-31. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0089406 Shen, X. (2010). Adult Playfulness as a Personality Trait: Its Conceptualization, Measurement, and Relationship to Psychological Well-Being. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Pennsylvania State University Library Catalog (OCLC No. 859524715). Shen, X., Chick, G. & Zinn, H. (2014). Playfulness in adulthood as a personality trait: a reconceptualization and a new measurement. Journal of Leisure Research, 46 (1), 58-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2014.11950313 Sternin, I. A., & Rudakova, A. V. (2011). Psikholingvisticheskoie znacheniie slova i yego opisaniie [Psycholinguistic meaning of the word and its description]. Voronezh: Lambert Tsuji, Hit., Tsuji, Hei., Yamada, S., Natsuno, Y., Morita, Y., Mukoyama, Y., Hata, K. & Fujishima, Y. (1996). Standardization of the Five Factor Personality Questionnaire: Factor structure. International Journal of Psychology, 31. Proceedings from the XXVI International Congress of Psychology Montreal, 16-21August (103-217). Ufimtseva, N. (2009). Obraz mira russkikh: sistemnost i soderzhaniie [Image of the world of Russians: the systemic characteristics and the content]. Yazyk i Kultura − Language and Culture, 98-111. Ushakov, D. N. (Ed.). (1935-1940). Tolkovyi Slovar Russkogo Yazyka [Dictionary of Russian Language]: in four volumes. Moscow: Sov. Encyclopedia: OGIZ. http://feb-web.ru/feb/ushakov/ush-abc/0ush.htm Yarnal, C. & Qian, X. (2011). Older-adult playfulness: an innovative construct and measurement for healthy aging research. American Journal of Play, 4(1), 52-79. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ985548.pdf Yefremova, T. F. (2000). Novyi Slovar Russkogo Yazyka. Tolkovo-Slovoobrazovatelnyi [New Dictionary of the Russian Language. Interpretative and Derivational]. Moscow: Russkii yazyk. Retrieved from: https://www.efremova.info/ Yepishkin, N. I. (2010). Istoricheskii slovar gallitsizmov russkogo yazyka [Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms in the Russian Language]. ETS Dictionary Publishing House. Retrieved from: http://rus-yaz.niv.ru/doc/gallism-dictionary/index.htm Yue, X., Leung, C. & Hiranandani, N. (2016). Adult playfulness, humor styles, and subjective happiness. Psychological Reports, 119(3), 630-640. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294116662842 Zasiekina, L. V. (2008). Tendentsiii rozvytku vitchyznianoii psykholingvistyky: metodolohichnyi ohliad problem ta okreslennia shlyakhiv yikh vyrishennia [Trends in the development of national psycholinguistics: a methodological overview of problems and outlining ways to solve them]. Psycholinguistics-Psiholingvistika, 1. Retrieved from: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/psling_2008_1_2

The purpose of this study is to define and describe the semantic components of the verbalised concept “lightness” as a component of ludic competence in the linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking people from Eastern Ukraine. The main method of the research was a psycholinguistic experiment. The sample comprised 426 young people (aged 18-35), males and females being equally represented. Cluster analysis showed that the core of the concept “lightness” is represented by three semantic groups: “the quality being light and insignificant in weight and size …”, “the feeling of happiness and joyful ease”, “the feeling of freedom …, cheerfulness, excitement”. The last two clusters reveal the ambivalent nature of the concept “lightness”. The concept “lightness” is characterized by a large variety of peripheral clusters. The ones that are especially noteworthy are “insight” and “duality”. The former reflects the cognitive component of lightness, which accounts for 3 per cent. The latter reflects the concept’s ambivalent nature. Basically, the semantic content of the core of the word “lightness” does not depend on gender. The comparative analysis of the concept “lightness” in the linguistic consciousness of Ukrainian citizens and people living in Russia reveals its nationally-specific perception in the linguistic consciousness of Ukrainian people, which was reflected in the most frequent reaction “freedom”. Taken together, both samples share a number of common features: wide semantic scope; strong synonymic and weak antonymic connections between stimulus and reactions; positive emotional response to the stimulus. Finally, the results of the free word association test with the stimulus word “lightness” were successfully used to define more precisely and expand our understanding of “lightness” as a component of ludic competence taking into account both core and peripheral clusters. References Barnett, L. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 949-958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.02.018 Bowman, J. (1987). Making Work Play. In G. A. Fine (Ed.), Meaningful Play, Playful Meanings (pp. 61-71). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Bundy, A. (1996). Play and Playfulness: What to Look for. In D.L. Parham & L. S. Fazio (Eds.), Play in Occupational Therapy for Children (pp. 52−66). St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Chapman, J. (1978). Playfulness and the development of divergent thinking abilities. Child: Care, Health and Development, 4, 371-383. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.1978.tb00096.x Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Play and intrinsic rewards. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15, 41-63. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.1978.tb00096.x Dal, V. I. (2011). Tolkovyi Slovar Zhivogo Velikorusskogo Yazyka [Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language]: in four volumes. Moscow: Publishing house: Drofa. Glynn, M., & Webster, J. (1992). The adult playfulness scale: an initial assessment. Psychological Reports, 71(1), 83-103. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.71.1.83 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2017). Playful competence: the access code to the inner resources. Proceedings of the 15th European Congress of Psychology Amsterdam, 11-14 July (19). Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Pidchasov, Ye., Sauta, S., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2018). The problem of sample representativeness for conducting experimental and broad psychological research. Psycholinguistics, 23(1), 11-46. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1212360. Groos, K. (1976). The Play of Man: Teasing and Love-Play. In J. Brunner, A. Jolly, & K. Sylva (Eds.), Play, Development and Evolution (pp. 62–83). Middlesex, United Kingdom: Penguin Books. Guitard, P., Ferland, F. & Dutil, É. (2005). Toward a better understanding of playfulness in adults. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 25(1), 9-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/153944920502500103. Кобзева, Ю., Гордиенко-Митрофанова, И., Гончаренко-Кулиш, А. (2020a). Определение шаловливости как компонента игровой компетентности через реконструкцию семантических элементов концепта «шаловливость». Проблеми сучасної психології, 47, 118-140. Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Sauta S. (2020b). Psycholinguistic Features of Imagination as a Component of Ludic Competence. EUREKA: Social and Humanities. Psychology, 2, 15-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.21303/2504-5571.2020.001128 Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Udovenko M., Sauta S. (2020c). Concept “humour” in the linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. European Journal of Humour Research, 8(1), 29-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.1.kobzieva Караулов Ю. Н., Черкасова Г. А., Уфимцева Н. В., Сорокин Ю. А., Тарасов Е. Ф. Русский ассоциативный словарь. В 2-х т. Т. I. От стимула к реакции: ок.7000 стимулов. М.: ООО «Издательство Астрель»: ООО Издательство АСТ». Караулов Ю. Н., Черкасова Г. 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Measurement of playfulness: a neglected therapist variable. International Journal of Play Therapy, 6(2), 21-31. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0089406 Shen, X. (2010). Adult Playfulness as a Personality Trait: Its Conceptualization, Measurement, and Relationship to Psychological Well-Being. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Pennsylvania State University Library Catalog (OCLC No. 859524715). Shen, X., Chick, G. & Zinn, H. (2014). Playfulness in adulthood as a personality trait: a reconceptualization and a new measurement. Journal of Leisure Research, 46(1), 58-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2014.11950313 Стернин, И. А., Рудакова, А. В. (2011). Психолингвистическое значение слова и его описание. Воронеж: Ламберт. Tsuji, Hit., Tsuji, Hei., Yamada, S., Natsuno, Y., Morita, Y., Mukoyama, Y., Hata, K. & Fujishima, Y. (1996). Standardization of the Five Factor Personality Questionnaire: Factor structure. International Journal of Psychology, 31. 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Тенденції розвитку вітчизняної психолінгвістики: методологічний огляд проблем та окреслення шляхів їх вирішення. Психолінгвістика, 1. С. 9-20. Retrieved from: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/psling_2008_1_2. References (translated and transliterated) Barnett, L. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 949-958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.02.018 Bowman, J. (1987). Making Work Play. In G. A. Fine (Ed.), Meaningful Play, Playful Meanings (pp. 61-71). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Bundy, A. (1996). Play and Playfulness: What to Look for. In D.L. Parham & L. S. Fazio (Eds.), Play in Occupational Therapy for Children (pp. 52−66). St. Louis, MO: Mosby. Chapman, J. (1978). Playfulness and the development of divergent thinking abilities. Child: Care, Health and Development, 4, 371-383. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.1978.tb00096.x Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Play and intrinsic rewards. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15, 41-63. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2214.1978.tb00096.x Dal, V. I. (2011). Tolkovyi Slovar Zhivogo Velikorusskogo Yazyka [Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language]: in four volumes. Moscow: Publishing house: Drofa. Glynn, M., & Webster, J. (1992). The adult playfulness scale: an initial assessment. Psychological Reports, 71(1), 83-103. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1992.71.1.83 Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2017). Playful competence: the access code to the inner resources. Proceedings of the 15th European Congress of Psychology Amsterdam, 11-14 July (19). Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Pidchasov, Ye., Sauta, S., & Kobzieva, Iu. (2018). The problem of sample representativeness for conducting experimental and broad psychological research. Psycholinguistics, 23(1), 11-46. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1212360. Groos, K. (1976). The Play of Man: Teasing and Love-Play. In J. Brunner, A. Jolly, & K. Sylva (Eds.), Play, Development and Evolution (pp. 62–83). Middlesex, United Kingdom: Penguin Books. Guitard, P., Ferland, F. & Dutil, É. (2005). Toward a better understanding of playfulness in adults. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 25(1), 9-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/153944920502500103. Кобзева, Ю., Гордиенко-Митрофанова, И., Гончаренко-Кулиш, А. (2020a). Определение шаловливости как компонента игровой компетентности через реконструкцию семантических элементов концепта «шаловливость». Проблеми сучасної психології, 47, 118-140. Kobzieva, Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova, I., Goncharenko-Kulish, A. (2020a). Opredeleniie shalovlivosti kak komponenta igrovoi kompetentosti cherez rekonstruktsiiu semanticheskikh elementov kontsepta “shalovlivost” [Defining impishness as a component of ludic competence via restructuring semantic elements of the concept “impishness”]. Problemy Suchasnoi Psykholohii − Problems of Modern Psychology, 47, 118-140. https://doi.org/10.32626/2227-6246.2020-47 Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Sauta S. (2020b). Psycholinguistic Features of Imagination as a Component of Ludic Competence. EUREKA: Social and Humanities. Psychology, 2, 15-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.21303/2504-5571.2020.001128 Kobzieva Iu., Gordienko-Mytrofanova I., Udovenko M., Sauta S. (2020c). Concept “humour” in the linguistic consciousness of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. European Journal of Humour Research, 8(1), 29-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.1.kobzieva Karaulov, Yu. N., Cherkasova, G. A., Ufimtseva, N. V., Sorokin, Yu. A., & Tarasov, Ye. F. (2002a). Russkii Assotsiativnyi Slovar [Russian Associative Vocabulary], Vol. 1. Ot reaktsii k stimulu [From Reaction to Stimulus], ca. 100000 reactions. Мoscow: LLC Astrel Publishers; LLC AST Publishers. Karaulov, Yu. N., Cherkasova, G. A., Ufimtseva, N. V., Sorokin, Yu. A., & Tarasov, Ye. F. (2002b). Russkii Assotsiativnyi Slovar [Russian Associative Vocabulary], Vol. 2. Ot stimula k reaktsii [From Stimulus to Reaction], ca. 7000 stimuli. Мoscow: LLC Astrel Publishers; LLC AST Publishers. Ожегов, С. И., Шведова, Н. Ю. (2011). Толковый словарь русского языка. Москва: Мир и образование, Оникс. Ozhegov, S. I. & Shvedova, N. Yu. (2011). Tolkovyi Slovar Russkogo Yazyka [Dictionary of Russian Language]. Мoscow: Mir i Obrazovaniie, Oniks. Попова, З. Д., Стернин, И. А. (2007). Семантико-когнитивный анализ языка. Воронеж: Истоки. Popova, Z. D. & Sternin, I. A. (2007). Semantiko-Kognitivnyi Analiz Yazyka [Semantic and Cognitive Analysis of Language]. Voronezh: Istoki. Proyer, R. (2012). Development and initial assessment of a short measure for adult playfulness: The SMAP. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(8), 989-994. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.07.018 Proyer, R. (2017). A new structural model for the study of adult playfulness: Assessment and exploration of an understudied individual differences variable. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 113-122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.12.011 Raven, J. (2001). The Conceptualisation of Competence. New York: Peter Lang Publishing,Inc. Schaefer, C. & Greenberg, R. (1997). Measurement of playfulness: a neglected therapist variable. International Journal of Play Therapy, 6(2), 21-31. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0089406 Shen, X. (2010). Adult Playfulness as a Personality Trait: Its Conceptualization, Measurement, and Relationship to Psychological Well-Being. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Pennsylvania State University Library Catalog (OCLC No. 859524715). Shen, X., Chick, G. & Zinn, H. (2014). Playfulness in adulthood as a personality trait: a reconceptualization and a new measurement. Journal of Leisure Research, 46(1), 58-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2014.11950313 Sternin, I. 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Older-adult playfulness: an innovative construct and measurement for healthy aging research. American Journal of Play, 4(1), 52-79. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ985548.pdf Yefremova, T. F. (2000). Novyi Slovar Russkogo Yazyka. Tolkovo-Slovoobrazovatelnyi [New Dictionary of the Russian Language. Interpretative and Derivational]. Moscow: Russkii yazyk. https://www.efremova.info/ Yepishkin, N. I. (2010). Istoricheskii slovar gallitsizmov russkogo yazyka [Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms in the Russian Language]. Moscow: ETS Dictionary Publishing House. Retrieved from: http://rus-yaz.niv.ru/doc/gallism-dictionary/index.htm Yue, X., Leung, C. & Hiranandani, N. (2016). Adult playfulness, humor styles, and subjective happiness. Psychological Reports, 119(3), 630-640. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294116662842. Zasiekina, L. V. (2008). Tendentsiii rozvytku vitchyznianoii psykholingvistyky: metodolohichnyi ohliad problem ta okreslennia shlyakhiv yikh vyrishennia [Trends in the development of national psycholinguistics: a methodological overview of problems and outlining ways to solve them]. Psycholinguistics, 1, 9-20. Retrieved from: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/psling_2008_1_2.

Introduction A snapshot, not unlike countless photographs likely to be found in any number of family albums, shows two figures sitting on a park bench: an elderly and amiable looking man grins beneath the rim of a golf cap; a young boy of twelve smiles wide for the camera — a rather banal scene, captured on film. And yet, this seemingly innocent and unexceptional photograph was the site of a remarkable and wide ranging discourse — encompassing American conservatism, celebrity politics, and the end of the Cold War — as the image circulated around the globe during the weeklong state funeral of Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States. Taken in 1997 by the young boy’s grandfather, Ukrainian immigrant Yakov Ravin, during a chance encounter with the former president, the snapshot is believed to be the last public photograph of Ronald Reagan. Published on the occasion of the president’s death, the photograph made “instant celebrities” of the boy, now a twenty-year-old college student, Rostik Denenburg and his grand dad. Throughout the week of Reagan’s funeral, the two joined a chorus of dignitaries, politicians, pundits, and “ordinary” Americans praising Ronald Reagan: “The Great Communicator,” the man who defeated Communism, the popular president who restored America’s confidence, strength, and prosperity. Yes, it was mourning in America again. And the whole world was watching. Not since Princess Diana’s sudden (and unexpected) death, have we witnessed an electronic hagiography of such global proportions. Unlike Diana’s funeral, however, Reagan’s farewell played out in distinctly partisan terms. As James Ridgeway (2004) noted, the Reagan state funeral was “not only face-saving for the current administration, but also perhaps a mask for the American military debacle in Iraq. Not to mention a gesture of America’s might in the ‘war on terror.’” With non-stop media coverage, the weeklong ceremonies provided a sorely needed shot in the arm to the Bush re-election campaign. Still, whilst the funeral proceedings and the attendant media coverage were undeniably excessive in their deification of the former president, the historical white wash was not nearly so vulgar as the antiseptic send off Richard Nixon received back in 1994. That is to say, the piety of the Nixon funeral was at once startling and galling to many who reviled the man (Lapham). By contrast, given Ronald Reagan’s disarming public persona, his uniquely cordial relationship with the national press corps, and most notably, his handler’s mastery of media management techniques, the Reagan idolatry was neither surprising nor unexpected. In this brief essay, I want to consider Reagan’s funeral, and his legacy, in relation to what cultural critics, referring to the production of celebrity, have described as “fame games” (Turner, Bonner & Marshall). Specifically, I draw on the concept of “flashpoints” — moments of media excess surrounding a particular personage — in consideration of the Reagan funeral. Throughout, I demonstrate how Reagan’s death and the attendant media coverage epitomize this distinctive feature of contemporary culture. Furthermore, I observe Reagan’s innovative approaches to electoral politics in the age of television. Here, I suggest that Reagan’s appropriation of the strategies and techniques associated with advertising, marketing and public relations were decisive, not merely in terms of his electoral success, but also in securing his lasting fame. I conclude with some thoughts on the implications of Reagan’s legacy on historical memory, contemporary politics, and what neoconservatives, the heirs of the Reagan Revolution, gleefully describe as the New American Century. The Magic Hour On the morning of 12 June 2004, the last day of the state funeral, world leaders eulogized Reagan, the statesmen, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Among the A-List political stars invited to speak were Margaret Thatcher, former president George H. W. Bush and, to borrow Arundhati Roi’s useful phrase, “Bush the Lesser.” Reagan’s one-time Cold War adversary, Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as former Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were also on hand, but did not have speaking parts. Former Reagan administration officials, Supreme Court justices, and congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle rounded out a guest list that read like a who’s who of the American political class. All told, Reagan’s weeklong sendoff was a state funeral at its most elaborate. It had it all—the flag draped coffin, the grieving widow, the riderless horse, and the procession of mourners winding their way through the Rotunda of the US Capitol. In this last regard, Reagan joined an elite group of seven presidents, including four who died by assassination — Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy — to be honored by having his remains lie in state in the Rotunda. But just as the deceased president was product of the studio system, so too, the script for the Gipper’s swan song come straight out of Hollywood. Later that day, the Reagan entourage made one last transcontinental flight back to the presidential library in Simi Valley, California for a private funeral service at sunset. In Hollywood parlance, the “magic hour” refers to the quality of light at dusk. It is an ideal, but ephemeral time favored by cinematographers, when the sunlight takes on a golden glow lending grandeur, nostalgia, and oftentimes, a sense of closure to a scene. This was Ronald Reagan’s final moment in the sun: a fitting end for an actor of the silver screen, as well as for the president who mastered televisual politics. In a culture so thoroughly saturated with the image, even the death of a minor celebrity is an occasion to replay film clips, interviews, paparazzi photos and the like. Moreover, these “flashpoints” grow in intensity and frequency as promotional culture, technological innovation, and the proliferation of new media outlets shape contemporary media culture. They are both cause and consequence of these moments of media excess. And, as Turner, Bonner and Marshall observe, “That is their point. It is their disproportionate nature that makes them so important: the scale of their visibility, their overwhelmingly excessive demonstration of the power of the relationship between mass-mediated celebrities and the consumers of popular culture” (3-4). B-Movie actor, corporate spokesman, state governor and, finally, US president, Ronald Reagan left an extraordinary photographic record. Small wonder, then, that Reagan’s death was a “flashpoint” of the highest order: an orgy of images, a media spectacle waiting to happen. After all, Reagan appeared in over 50 films during his career in Hollywood. Publicity stills and clips from Reagan’s film career, including Knute Rockne, All American, the biopic that earned Reagan his nickname “the Gipper”, King’s Row, and Bedtime for Bonzo provided a surreal, yet welcome respite from television’s obsessive (some might say morbidly so) live coverage of Reagan’s remains making their way across country. Likewise, archival footage of Reagan’s political career — most notably, images of the 1981 assassination attempt; his quip “not to make age an issue” during the 1984 presidential debate; and his 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate demanding that Soviet President Gorbachev, “tear down this wall” — provided the raw materials for press coverage that thoroughly dominated the global mediascape. None of which is to suggest, however, that the sheer volume of Reagan’s photographic record is sufficient to account for the endless replay and reinterpretation of Reagan’s life story. If we are to fully comprehend Reagan’s fame, we must acknowledge his seminal engagement with promotional culture, “a professional articulation between the news and entertainment media and the sources of publicity and promotion” (Turner, Bonner & Marshall 5) in advancing an extraordinary political career. Hitting His Mark In a televised address supporting Barry Goldwater’s nomination for the presidency delivered at the 1964 Republican Convention, Ronald Reagan firmly established his conservative credentials and, in so doing, launched one of the most remarkable and influential careers in American politics. Political scientist Gerard J. De Groot makes a compelling case that the strategy Reagan and his handlers developed in the 1966 California gubernatorial campaign would eventually win him the presidency. The centerpiece of this strategy was to depict the former actor as a political outsider. Crafting a persona he described as “citizen politician,” Reagan’s great appeal and enormous success lie in his uncanny ability to project an image founded on traditional American values of hard work, common sense and self-determination. Over the course of his political career, Reagan’s studied optimism and “no-nonsense” approach to public policy would resonate with an electorate weary of career politicians. Charming, persuasive, and seemingly “authentic,” Reagan ran gubernatorial and subsequent presidential campaigns that were distinctive in that they employed sophisticated public relations and marketing techniques heretofore unknown in the realm of electoral politics. The 1966 Reagan gubernatorial campaign took the then unprecedented step of employing an advertising firm, Los Angeles-based Spencer-Roberts, in shaping the candidate’s image. Leveraging their candidate’s ease before the camera, the Reagan team crafted a campaign founded upon a sophisticated grasp of the television industry, TV news routines, and the medium’s growing importance to electoral politics. For instance, in the days before the 1966 Republican primary, the Reagan team produced a five-minute film using images culled from his campaign appearances. Unlike his opponent, whose television spots were long-winded, amateurish and poorly scheduled pieces that interrupted popular programs, like Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, Reagan’s short film aired in the early evening, between program segments (De Groot). Thus, while his opponent’s television spot alienated viewers, the Reagan team demonstrated a formidable appreciation not only for televisual style, but also, crucially, a sophisticated understanding of the nuances of television scheduling, audience preferences and viewing habits. Over the course of his political career, Reagan refined his media driven, media directed campaign strategy. An analysis of his 1980 presidential campaign reveals three dimensions of Reagan’s increasingly sophisticated media management strategy (Covington et al.). First, the Reagan campaign carefully controlled their candidate’s accessibility to the press. Reagan’s penchant for potentially damaging off-the-cuff remarks and factual errors led his advisors to limit journalists’ interactions with the candidate. Second, the character of Reagan’s public appearances, including photo opportunities and especially press conferences, grew more formal. Reagan’s interactions with the press corps were highly structured affairs designed to control which reporters were permitted to ask questions and to help the candidate anticipate questions and prepare responses in advance. Finally, the Reagan campaign sought to keep the candidate “on message.” That is to say, press releases, photo opportunities and campaign appearances focused on a single, consistent message. This approach, known as the Issue of the Day (IOD) media management strategy proved indispensable to advancing the administration’s goals and achieving its objectives. Not only was the IOD strategy remarkably effective in influencing press coverage of the Reagan White House, this coverage promoted an overwhelmingly positive image of the president. As the weeklong funeral amply demonstrated, Reagan was, and remains, one of the most popular presidents in modern American history. Reagan’s popular (and populist) appeal is instructive inasmuch as it illuminates the crucial distinction between “celebrity and its premodern antecedent, fame” observed by historian Charles L. Ponce de Leone (13). Whereas fame was traditionally bestowed upon those whose heroism and extraordinary achievements distinguished them from common people, celebrity is a defining feature of modernity, inasmuch as celebrity is “a direct outgrowth of developments that most of us regard as progressive: the spread of the market economy and the rise of democratic, individualistic values” (Ponce de Leone 14). On one hand, then, Reagan’s celebrity reflects his individualism, his resolute faith in the primacy of the market, and his defense of “traditional” (i.e. democratic) American values. On the other hand, by emphasizing his heroic, almost supernatural achievements, most notably his vanquishing of the “Evil Empire,” the Reagan mythology serves to lift him “far above the common rung of humanity” raising him to “the realm of the divine” (Ponce de Leone 14). Indeed, prior to his death, the Reagan faithful successfully lobbied Congress to create secular shrines to the standard bearer of American conservatism. For instance, in 1998, President Clinton signed a bill that officially rechristened one of the US capitol’s airports to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. More recently, conservatives working under the aegis of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project have called for the creation of even more visible totems to the Reagan Revolution, including replacing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s profile on the dime with Reagan’s image and, more dramatically, inscribing Reagan in stone, alongside Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt at Mount Rushmore (Gordon). Therefore, Reagan’s enduring fame rests not only on the considerable symbolic capital associated with his visual record, but also, increasingly, upon material manifestations of American political culture. The High Stakes of Media Politics What are we to make of Reagan’s fame and its implications for America? To begin with, we must acknowledge Reagan’s enduring influence on modern electoral politics. Clearly, Reagan’s “citizen politician” was a media construct — the masterful orchestration of ideological content across the institutional structures of news, public relations and marketing. While some may suggest that Reagan’s success was an anomaly, a historical aberration, a host of politicians, and not a few celebrities — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger among them — emulate Reagan’s style and employ the media management strategies he pioneered. Furthermore, we need to recognize that the Reagan mythology that is so thoroughly bound up in his approach to media/politics does more to obscure, rather than illuminate the historical record. For instance, in her (video taped) remarks at the funeral service, Margaret Thatcher made the extraordinary claim — a central tenet of the Reagan Revolution — that Ronnie won the cold war “without firing a shot.” Such claims went unchallenged, at least in the establishment press, despite Reagan’s well-documented penchant for waging costly and protracted proxy wars in Afghanistan, Africa, and Central America. Similarly, the Reagan hagiography failed to acknowledge the decisive role Gorbachev and his policies of “reform” and “openness” — Perestroika and Glasnost — played in the ending of the Cold War. Indeed, Reagan’s media managed populism flies in the face of what radical historian Howard Zinn might describe as a “people’s history” of the 1980s. That is to say, a broad cross-section of America — labor, racial and ethnic minorities, environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists among them — rallied in vehement opposition to Reagan’s foreign and domestic policies. And yet, throughout the weeklong funeral, the divisiveness of the Reagan era went largely unnoted. In the Reagan mythology, then, popular demonstrations against an unprecedented military build up, the administration’s failure to acknowledge, let alone intervene in the AIDS epidemic, and the growing disparity between rich and poor that marked his tenure in office were, to borrow a phrase, relegated to the dustbin of history. In light of the upcoming US presidential election, we ought to weigh how Reagan’s celebrity squares with the historical record; and, equally important, how his legacy both shapes and reflects the realities we confront today. Whether we consider economic and tax policy, social services, electoral politics, international relations or the domestic culture wars, Reagan’s policies and practices continue to determine the state of the union and inform the content and character of American political discourse. Increasingly, American electoral politics turns on the pithy soundbite, the carefully orchestrated pseudo-event, and a campaign team’s unwavering ability to stay on message. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ronald Reagan’s unmistakable influence upon the current (and illegitimate) occupant of the White House. References Covington, Cary R., Kroeger, K., Richardson, G., and J. David Woodward. “Shaping a Candidate’s Image in the Press: Ronald Reagan and the 1980 Presidential Election.” Political Research Quarterly 46.4 (1993): 783-98. De Groot, Gerard J. “‘A Goddamed Electable Person’: The 1966 California Gubernatorial Campaign of Ronald Reagan.” History 82.267 (1997): 429-48. Gordon, Colin. “Replace FDR on the Dime with Reagan?” History News Network 15 December, 2003. http://hnn.us/articles/1853.html>. Lapham, Lewis H. “Morte de Nixon – Death of Richard Nixon – Editorial.” Harper’s Magazine (July 1994). http://www.harpers.org/MorteDeNixon.html>. Ponce de Leon, Charles L. Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2002. Ridgeway, James. “Bush Takes a Ride in Reagan’s Wake.” Village Voice (10 June 2004). http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0423/mondo5.php>. Turner, Graeme, Frances Bonner, and P. David Marshall. Fame Games: The Production of Celebrity in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Zinn, Howard. The Peoples’ History of the United States: 1492-Present. New York: Harper Perennial, 1995. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Howley, Kevin. "Always Famous: Or, The Electoral Half-Life of Ronald Reagan." M/C Journal 7.5 (2004). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/17-howley.php>. APA Style Howley, K. (Nov. 2004) "Always Famous: Or, The Electoral Half-Life of Ronald Reagan," M/C Journal, 7(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0411/17-howley.php>.