She was born on October 10, 1935, in the village of Kaikovo in the Minsk district. Immediately after graduating from seven-year school in 1951, she enrolled in the Minsk Library College named after A.S. Pushkin.
As she later recalled, her mother's sister helped her to choose the profession. "A woman is very decent to work in a library," – quoted with humour by her relative, noting that at that young age when the question "Who to become?" was to be answered, she knew almost nothing about the librarian's work "in the broad sense of the profession. Reflecting on her professional choice, she recalled her school class leader, who was very surprised by the decision of her excellent student to become a librarian. After all, any other professions were opened for her. “Do you think you will work here? No, dear, you will be sent to the village, but it’s good, if not to some wilderness ... ”. This conversation took place during an excursion to the State Library of the BSSR named after V.I. Lenin (now the National Library of Belarus) in the first year of the technical school.
The words of the class teacher turned out to be somewhat prophetic. Zoya Makeenko's life also included the Chikolovichi rural library, the club of the Komarinsky district of the Gomel region (1954-1955), and the library of the Oktyabrsky district committee of the Communist Party of Belarus (1955-1958), and the public library No. 5 of the Leninsky district of Minsk (1960-1964), and the library of the Belarusian State Institute of National Economy (now the Belarusian State Economic University) (1964-1970), and the Fundamental Library of the Belarusian State University (1970-1981). But wherever Zoya Makeenko worked, one thing remained unchanged, her unconditional dedication and loyalty to the profession, responsibility and scrupulousness in any work, no matter what she performed.
Zoya Makeenko always strived for knowledge and improvement of her qualifications. Therefore, ten years after graduating from the library technical school, she received the coveted diploma of higher education in the speciality "library science and bibliography." I had to study, combining the difficult work of the head of the reading room of a public library, raising a young son and studying at the correspondence department of the library faculty of the Minsk Pedagogical Institute named after M. Gorky (now Belarusian State Pedagogical University named after M. Tank).
High professionalism, accumulated experience in librarianship did not go unnoticed.
At the beginning of 1981, Z.A. Makeenko to the State Library of the BSSR named after V.I. Lenin. Being here on a job assignment, she made a very good impression on the Deputy Director for Research and as a result, received an offer to take the position of Head of the Scientific and Methodological Department (SMD). Later, Zoya Makeenko will write about this in her memoirs: "... the prestige of working in such a library played an important role in choosing a solution, and I gave my consent ... And now I return to this library (after the excursion), but ... after 30 years." So, in February 1981, her professional career began at the State Library of the BSSR named after V.I. Lenin, all eleven years of work experience in which they passed in the scientific and methodological department. The positions occupied by Zoya Makeenko changed, but the direction of her activity remained unchanged since it was methodical work that was her real vocation.
"Library universities do not train methodologists ... Methodists become methodologists in practice, taking into account general work experience, sufficient erudition in librarianship, some personal qualities," - this is how Zoya Alexandrovna described the features of this area of work.
Professional experience of Makeyenko in libraries of various types, her extensive experience of methodical work behind her, allowed her, on the instructions of the Ministry of Culture, to regularly travel with reports and consultations to regional seminars, to study and check the work of the republic's libraries. Zoya Makeenko was well known to many librarians of the country, her speeches at republican seminars and all-Union conferences always evoked a lively response among the audience.
Zoya Makeenko's business trips were not limited to cities and villages of the republic, during this period of her life she had a chance to visit Moscow, Leningrad, Peterhof, Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Lugansk, Izhevsk and other cities of the USSR.
“An interesting proposal and a great honour,” according to Zoya Makeenko herself, in the mid-1980s was the invitation of the Minsk Institute of Culture to read a course on the topic “Organization of methodological guidance” for students of the library faculty. In parallel with her work in the library, she gave lectures until her retirement.
Makeenko is the author and compiler of a number of guidelines for the libraries of the republic: "GOSTs - in the practice of libraries", "Heads of libraries on work with personnel", "A word about the librarian", "Club and atheistic propaganda."
Numerous articles in professional collections and magazines belong to her: "Library and a Young Reader", "Portrait of a Business Man", "Methodological Association of Library Workers", "Methodological Assistance to Libraries of Special Industrial and Technical Schools", etc.
Zoya Makeenko became the compiler of methodical and bibliographic materials to help public libraries: "ABC of Health", "Young Family", "Congress of Strategic Decisions", etc.
On October 1, 1991, on the basis of the combined scientific-methodological and scientific-research departments of the library, the department of library science was created. In this structural unit, Zoya Makeenko worked for a very short time, in October 1991 she went on a well-deserved rest.
“Briefly about my work in the main library of the republic. The State Library as a methodological centre had rather high prestige in the country. Perhaps I, as the head. NMO did not make any significant breakthrough in its further development, but the fact that it did not drop the high bar of the prestige of the national methodological centre was also my great merit", - Zoya Alexandrovna summed up the results of her activities.
Her labour merits and achievements have been repeatedly awarded at various levels: Diploma of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the BSSR and the Belarusian Republican Committee of the Trade Union of Education Workers, Higher Education and Scientific Institutions, a 1st-degree diploma from the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the BSSR, a diploma from the Ministry of Culture of the BSSR and the BRK of the Trade Union of Cultural Workers, etc. In 1990 she was awarded the Veteran of Labor medal for forty years of fruitful work in the field of librarianship.
Colleagues with great respect and warmth remember Zoya Makeenko: “a high professional in her field, calm, erudite and impeccable in everything, a person who treats all the set goals and tasks with meticulousness ...” – this is not a complete list of epithets expressed by Zoya Makeenko's contemporaries in her address ...
Zoya Makeenko finished her life in December 2019.
Bibliology Research Department
We express our deep gratitude to Dmitry Makeenko, the son of Zoya Makeenko, for the responsiveness and promptly provided unique documents from the personal archive.
