"Not a woman's profession." A Serov resident has been named Russia's best IT librarian.

      Serov resident Ilya Novikov won the IT category at the All‑Russian "Librarian of the Year — 2025" competition held in Moscow, the Sverdlovsk Region Department of Information Policy reports.

      Ilya Novikov has worked at the Serov Central City Library named after D. N. Mamin‑Sibiryak for more than two years. The young specialist — Ilya is only 24 — has introduced several digital products for the convenience of readers.

      For example, he created the mobile app "BiblioNavigator," which not only allows users to find a book in the collections of all Serov libraries but also shows its location on the shelf.

      Using augmented reality technology, Ilya attracts young people’s interest in books, while the older generation attends his own course "Mobile Citizen," where the IT librarian explains the capabilities of smartphones and other gadgets, including for reading books online.

      At the All‑Russian competition the Sverdlovsk native competed against 413 librarians from 79 regions of Russia and became the winner in a special category.

      "Yesterday, in a solemn ceremony, he was presented with a diploma from the B. N. Yeltsin Presidential Library," wrote Sverdlovsk Region Governor Denis Pasler on his Telegram channel, congratulating Ilya on his well‑deserved victory in the competition’s IT category.