- E. L. Nemirovsky also adheres to the semiotic concept in his definition: "Book is one of the forms of existence and dissemination of semantic information, a way to organize the production of individual consciousness in a sign system for its perception by other individuals" [11, p. 493].
- I. E. Barenbaum drew attention to the insufficient consideration of the book"s multi-functionality (which is not only a means of information) and its orientation towards the reader in the semiotic concept. He also proposed his own definition: "A book is a work of writing or printing, having any readable sign form, fixed on any material, performing a number of functions simultaneously and addressed to a real or abstract reader" [citation: 10, p. 34].
- A. A. Belovitskaya and S. L. Omilyanchuk give such a definition of "book": "A book is a way of organizing a verbal, musical or visual work into editions; a way updated by means of the book business as a process and a transitory intermediate result of organizing the text of a literary, musical or visual work existing in the form of a written document into such a form of a press work as a book edition" [citation: 14, p. 281]. A. A. Belovitskaya singles out the essential characteristic of the book: "A book is one of the forms of existence of information" [citation: 14, p. 281].
Considering the above definitions, Migon notes that all these definitions more or less successfully outline the scope of the concept of "book", but they are not able to separate it from others, such as "newspaper", "magazine", "leaflet", that is, from the printed word in general.
Therefore, it gives recommendations that should be taken into account when defining the concept of "book": the definition should reflect the essence of the book as a public phenomenon; it should reflect the main characteristics of the phenomenon; the defined object and its defining part should be adequate; it should reflect the dual nature of the book - its material form and ideological content [10, p. 35].
In general, the Soviet book science was based on the conclusion that the complexity or impossibility of solving this or that scientific problem does not mean the impossibility of solving it in the future. Therefore, Soviet book experts tried to develop basic approaches to the definition of the concept of "book".
- Thus, A. I. Chernyak suggested that it would be expedient to divide the definition of "book" into two parts: formal and functional. In accordance with this, he proposed the following definition: "A book is a means of semantic information, a work of writing or printing, which is of public interest; it serves as an instrument of ideological struggle, the formation of socio-political, scientific and aesthetic views, an instrument of accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, scientific and technological progress" [quoted from: 7, p. 31].
- The functional approach, defined by A. I. Badger as "an approach to the work of the press from the reader"s point of view" [2, p. 3], is also inherent in the definition of the book in the encyclopedic dictionary "Books": "Books are the most important media, an instrument of political and ideological struggle, dissemination of knowledge, education and upbringing" [quoted from: 7, p. 32]. But this definition does not describe the book as a material carrier of social information.
- A. M. Ioffe, in his definition, tries to combine functional and semiotic approaches, as well as pay attention to the content of the book: the book is "documented semantic information that exists in the form of a text message or an image and functions in society in the historically conditioned form of a structurally organized and spatially detailed work of writing or printing" [7, p. 34]. In modern book science, the concept of "book" is considered in relation to the concept of "document". P. Otle also considered the book as a kind of document and gave it the following definition: "A book is a carrier of a certain size from a certain material, which, if necessary, can be bent or curled, on which signs representing some intellectual data are applied" [12, p. 257].