КА426 EUREGIO KARELIA: MUSEUM HYPERTEXT INTERIM NARRATIVE REPORT for the period 12.01.2013 – 11.03.2014 ACTIVITY 1. Launching days. Building teams of experts. The project started on January 12, 2013 after the contract for the implementation of the project was signed between the Joint Managing Authority of the Karelia ENPI CBC program and the Creative Industries and Cultural Tourism Development Fund. To facilitate the implementation of the project several teams were established, namely: - a team of project experts; - a team of Russian designers specializing in museum exhibitions, information environments and web design; - a team of Russian and Finnish engineers and technicians specializing in museum multimedia and IT technologies. In order to provide up-to-date information and news about the project two Facebook tools were used: a community "Museum Hypertext - Euregio Karelia" was created at www.facebook.com/museumhypertext to publish the basic information and a project's group was created at http://www.facebook.com/groups/423484411078214/ for the instant feedback and discussions. A website for the project was created in April 2013 at http://project.museumhypertext.com with information about the project, its participants and the key activities as well as the project's news, photographs and documents from the implemented activities. ACTIVITY 2. Holding an Opening Karelia workshop On March 20-22, 2013 an Opening Karelia workshop was held in Petrozavodsk as a kick-off project event in the Selena conference room of the Onego Palace hotel. Among the participants were the project partners and associate partners, researchers, IT experts, and designers. The workshop was conducted by Denis Kuznetsov, co-manager of the project. Art critic Georgy Nikich (Moscow), museum expert Nickolai Nikishin (Moscow) and Helena Lonkila from the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland were invited as experts. The three-day workshop program was very intense with several experts' presentations, museums' introductions, work groups sessions, discussions, game sessions and a visit to the National Museum of Karelia. The first day of the workshop was devoted to broadening views on the Euregio Karelia region, its outer and inner, state, administrative and other borders. The round table "Euregio Karelia: positions, perspectives, introductions" gave start to the workshop. Experts from different fields made their presentations and speeches on the following topics: - "Karelia as an example of creating and projecting meanings" by Ilya Solomeshch, Ph.D. in History, associate professor of the Department of history of countries of Northern Europe, head of the Laboratory on the problems of the Scandinavian countries and Finland During the presentation Karelia was introduced as a notion. Mr. Solomeshch explained how different groups of people view Karelia and what meanings it has in terms of territories, people, brands, and history. - "Experiencing Karelianism" by Helena Lonkila, University of Jyvaskyla, Department of art and culture studies During the presentation Karelia was taken down to different meanings as something basic, as points of entry, and as a reason to start thinking about the place of a human in the nature, about the tight interaction between a human and nature, about the Karelia region as a unique and valuable place and about the need to preserve the traditional culture. The workshop proceeded with the group work on the following topics: Brands of the Euregio Karelia region, Natural and geographical characteristics, Cultural landscape (ethnocultural characteristics) and Historical destinies. The task for Day 2 was to transfer the idea of hypertext from the regional level to particular museums and their information environment created with exhibitions by: - giving the description of the current exhibition of any participating museum not as the only possible message to the visitors on the suggested theme but as a hypertext that allows the visitors to read (identity, form) their own custom texts that carry various meanings; - identifying available (and missing but necessary) hypertext elements in the system of traditional museum exhibition such as interfaces, hyperlinks, information carriers, contexts, meanings. Later in the day the workshop participants visited the National Museum of the Republic of Karelia to see the permanent exhibition and continue group work on the following themes: - Transport routes of Karelia on both sides of the border: - War history; - Stone, mining, architecture; - Ethnography and folklore. Day 3 was devoted to revising current and preparing the terms of references for developing new methods, instruments and technologies for creating an information environment of the Euregio Karelia region as museum hypertext. The concept of the Opening Karelia game to be developed in the project was also discussed. Based on the work done during the workshop the participants suggested the following requirements to the information system: - Behavior patterns of museum visitors and their locations should be taken into account; The level of personalization should be quite high; The system should be module-based; The system should be open; The system should have a possibility for other museums to join; - Integration with social networks in the internet should be provided. The system should provide access to a maximum number of gadgets like touch screens, information kiosks, personal computers, mobile devices. Internet access should be a must. QR codes and other markers such as NFC (near field communication), geotracking, images, etc. are preferable for using as markers. Light and sound installations, projectors, chargers for mobile gadgets are also advisable. Augmented reality technology is suggested as a separate module. The - - - participants also prepared a set of requirements for the game: The game should be quest-based (a tour of exhibitions and museums); The game should virtually connect museums that are located relatively far away from each other. The game is a sort of a portal to the museums. Therefore the game should have a common concept and a style and, preferably, characters (same characters in all museums or each museum has its own character); The game should have different levels of complexity that determine formats and possibilities for choosing a route; Meanwhile the game should be easy-to-use and limited in technical means and information. The players should get familiar with the game on their own and they should instinctively understand it; The game should be diverse with questions, puzzles, tasks, quests and possess interactive and tactile features; The reached goal of the game can be awarded with a prize, an award, a diploma, etc. The game can be simple, i.e. targeted at getting acquainted with a particular museum in the form of a quest/quiz/journey and being played by a visitor on his/her own. The game can go on and be extended with visits to several museums or become more complicated when going from one level to another. The results of the workshop are: During the workshop partnerships were established between the following museums: - Regional museum of Northern Priladozhye, Sortavala and North Karelian Museum, Joensuu; - Medvezhjegorsk regional museum and Joensuu bunkermuseum - Fighter's House, Ilomantsi; - Cultural museum center, Kostomuksha and Outokumpu Mining Museum; - National museum of the Republic of Karelia, North Karelian Museum and Regional museum of Northern Priladozhye; In the course of the workshop a whole range of issues was discussed, namely: - general vision of the basic parameters of description and presentation of the Euregio Karelia region as a multicultural, natural and historic phenomenon; - the museum hypertext as a new approach to creating modern exhibitions; - design solutions for new exhibitions in participating museums; - resources of modern information technologies for the open museum information system; - possible types and scenarios of the game for the museum visitors; - principles for selecting the content for the museum information system. Besides, an action plan was confirmed with experts and museums' representatives for the coming months, in particular the experts’ sessions in the participating museums. Quantitative results of the workshop: - 68 participants; - 1 round table "Euregio Karelia: positions, perspectives, introductions"; - 6 presentations by experts; - 10 presentations by participating museums; - 4 group work sessions with presentations of results; - 1 visit to the National museum of the Republic of Karelia; - 1 game session. ACTIVITY 3. Elaborating or updating development concepts and exhibition scenarios for museums. Prior to the experts' sessions all museums received questions to work through connected with preparation of materials for the development concepts for each museum (SWOT analysis) and a table (matrix) to fill in that reflects the materials that the museum possesses and that are located in the region that will be presented in the museum information system. (the following information is originally presented in the table format) - Immovable objects of heritage: Ethnography and folklore 5, Stone, architecture 5, War 5, Transport routes 5, Place of birth/ deposits (metallurgy, etc.) 5; - Exhibits: Ethnography and folklore 10, Stone, architecture 10, War 10, Transport routes 10, Place of birth/ deposits (metallurgy, etc.) 10; - Personalities: Ethnography and folklore 5, Stone, architecture 5, War 5, Transport routes 5, Place of birth/ deposits (metallurgy, etc.) 5; - Audio- and visual materials: Ethnography and folklore 5, Stone, architecture 5, War 5, Transport routes 5, Place of birth/ deposits (metallurgy, etc.) 5; - Articles published in the web: Ethnography and folklore 5, Stone, architecture 5, War 5, Transport routes 5, Place of birth/ deposits (metallurgy, etc.) 5; - Photographs, illustrations, documents: Ethnography and folklore 10, Stone, architecture 10, War 10, Transport routes 10, Place of birth/ deposits (metallurgy, etc.) 10; where Ethnography and folklore, Stone, architecture, War, Transport routes and Place of birth/ deposits (metallurgy, etc.) are theme/types of material. - Immovable objects, photographs + description; - Exhibits - dimensional (three-dimensional, not photographs, not documents, not illustrations). These are the objects from the present exhibitions or from the museum collections which will be used in the new exhibition; - Personalities - photograph(s) + possible documents + description; - Audiovisual materials - video, audio recordings (with a note whether they were digitalized or not), what carrier, how they are used in the museum; - Articles in the web written by museum staff or other people that cover the topic - author, name, link, summary; - Photographs, illustrations (pictures, etc.) and documents - flat exhibits or museum objects that will be used in the new exhibition. After having processed the information received from the museums, experts' sessions were organized: 19. - 20.4.2013 - Regional museum of Northern Priladozhye, Sortavala; 13. - 14.5.2013 - Medvezhyegorsk regional museum, Medvezhyegorsk; 15. - 16.5.2013 - Cultural museum center, Kostomuksha; 17.5.2013 - National museum of the Republic of Karelia, Petrozavodsk; 22. - 26.6.2013 - North Karelia Museum (Joensuu), Fighter's House (Ilomantsi) (and a visit to the Outokumpu Mining museum). During the experts' sessions the project experts and managers met with the representatives of the local administrations and museums and the local community members to hear their opinions about the place of the museum in the cultural life of the region. During the sessions the SWOT analysis was carried out and the directions for the development were discussed. Besides, the experts reviews and updated the matrices that were filled in by the museums before the sessions. Quantitative results: - 6 experts' sessions; - 1 visit to the Mining museum in Outokumpu; - 68 participants; - 9 matrices that structure the material for the museum information system. Based on the results of the work done during the experts' sessions three development concepts were elaborated/updated for the museums in Medvezhyegorsk, Kostomuksha and Sortavala. The scenario concepts for new hypertext-based museum exhibitions were also created. The development concepts and scenarios for exhibitions were negotiated with partner museums. Besides the SWOT analysis the museum development concepts comprise the following sections: - Mission, values and goals; - Target groups for museum products; - Place of the museum in the museums' regional network; - A functional model of the museum; - Field-specific area of expertise; - Priority lines of the museum activity; - Concept of educational activity of the museum; - Priorities in research activities of the museum; - List of resources integrated into the museum's activities; - Marketing strategy of the museum. *********************** SORTAVALA Being responsible for identifying, collecting, preserving and increasing the values of natural and cultural heritage of the North Ladoga region, the Museum sees its social mission as follows: - to provide free access to the values and relevant information to the visitors (institutions, individuals, locals and guests, including foreign visitors); to offer visitors as equal partners of the museum a set of communication and other associated services that are connected with beneficial use of museum resources and technologies to meet their cognitive, educational, creative, economic and other needs. SCENARIO CONCEPT OF THE EXHIBITION IN THE MUSEUM OF NORTH LADOGA REGION Name: Sortavala Stone Keys Place: Entrance exhibition hall (50 sq.m) and its outside area (museum yard) (300 sq. m.) The exhibition targets at: - Presenting the North Ladoga Region (and Sortavala as its symbolic key) as a group of (stone) blocks that form a common (stone) basement as one of the most important (stone) supports for what (construction, bridge) binds the Russian, Karelian, Finnish and All-European cultures into one. - Creating a special type of the exhibition in the system of exhibitions, tours and travel routes of the Regional Museum of North Ladoga Lake that combines the functions of (a) a monographic narrative devoted to a particular topic and (b) a hypertext-based reference and information guide designed to help the visitors find their way in the information environment of the museum. - Creating a friendly high tech information environment within the museum exhibition in order to help the visitors to create their own strategies, scenarios and tours to get familiarized and interact with this particular museum and other museums in the region, with the city, with the area, with the Republic of Karelia, with Russia and the world (including their geography, history and culture). Structure of the exhibition: 1. Natural history (local minerals and rocks of different composition, age and origin) 2. Archaeology (materials used by ancient people to make tools, weapons, cult objects) 3. Ethnic history (materials to make household utensils, dishware, decorations, amulets) 4. Industrial history (iron ore, copper ore, silver ore, other minerals for the industry) 5. War history (materials to make fortresses, cannon charges, flint weapons) 6. Political history (stone materials to mark state borders and to produce symbols of power) 7. History of communications (samples of materials used to make roads, bridges, piers, computers) 8. History of architecture and design (building materials, finishing materials) 9. Art history (materials used to make famous monuments, bas-reliefs, gravestones) *********************** MEDVEZHYEGORSK The museum mission: being a collector, a keeper, a researcher and a popularizer of natural and cultural heritage of the areas of Zaonezhye, Segozerye, Vygoretsiya and the adjacent areas the museum is ready to assist people and organizations that are looking for: - business connections and personal contacts; - maps, landmarks and good travelers' recommendations; - knowledge, experience, useful information; - positive emotions, feelings and impressions; - demonstrations of personal achievements and testing of personal capacities. SCENARIO CONCEPT OF THE EXHIBITION IN THE MEDVEZHYEGORSK REGIONAL MUSEUM Name: Zaonezhsky Junction or the Roads We Take The exhibition targets at: - - Presenting the Medvezhyegorsk region as a system of communications: walking paths, side roads, concrete and asphalt roads, railroads, water ways, airways, crossroads, junctions, passages, crossings, bridges, ports, terminals, lines of ethnic and labor migrations, cargo and passenger flows and travel routes. Creating a friendly high tech information environment within the museum exhibition in order to help the visitors to create their own strategies, scenarios and tours to get familiarized and interact with this particular museum and other museums in the region, with the city, with the area, with the Republic of Karelia, with Russia and the world (including their geography, history and culture). Short scenario structure: 1. Stone alleys (geological maps - geological routes); 2. Water ways (maps of hydrographic network; the White Sea - Baltic Sea Canal; water trips; extreme, water and sport tourism); 3. Lines of life (maps of landscape, forests, natural habitats and migration routes of animals, eco tourism); 4. Crossroads of history (archaeology and history maps; population settlement maps; maps of monuments and museums; expeditions; travel routes); 5. Anthropological streams (ethnographic, demographic, historical and cultural maps; ethnographic tourism); 6. State roads (political and administrative borders, layouts of railroads, federal and other motorways, auto-, motor-, and bicycle tourism); 7. Stages of sorrow and grief (GULAG maps, mass burials, necropolises, monuments, memorials, memorial events); 8. Inscrutable ways (battle maps, fortresses, fortifications, military and historical campaigns) *********************** KOSTOMUKSHA The mission for the Cultural and museum center in Kostomuksha is defined as follows: - We know our city and its people as no one else; - We know all local enterprises and organizations from their start as no one; - We know the dates of the construction of every house, every building, every street and every park; - We remember each event that happened in our city from the beginning; - We are in contact with the participants and eyewitnesses of these events; - All our knowledge is supported by documents and physical evidence; - We know and love our city because we are its cultural and museum center; - If you are a local or a visitor we are at your service; - We will share our knowledge. We will tell, show, guide, introduce, help and notify; - This is our professional duty, public acknowledgement and cultural mission. SCENARIO CONCEPT OF THE EXHIBITION OF THE CULTURAL AND MUSEUM CENTER IN KOSTOMUKSHA Name: Chronograph of the Kostomuksha Birthplace The exhibition targets at: - Assisting the development of local community of Kostomuksha, shaping its identity, common consciousness and urban patriotism by constituting a becoming phenomenon of the city cultural heritage which is a system of locally significant symbolic initiatives, achievements, objects, personalities and the dates of their birth. - Introducing a chronicle of Kostomuksha as a unique settlement that boast short but distinctive history and cultural heritage that can be a source of development for culture, social sphere and economy of the young city by using a unique photo archive and the latest mobile technologies. - Creating a special exhibition unit within a system of exhibitions and tours of the Cultural and museum center that combines functions of (a) a historical narrative illustrated with unique photo documents, and (b) a reference retrieval system (chronological directory) that guides in the information and cultural environment of the city. - Creating a friendly high tech information environment within the museum exhibition in order to help the visitors to create their own strategies, scenarios and tours to get familiarized and interact with the city of Kostomuksha, its geography, history, culture, heritage sites and objects, and different aspects of their interpretation and presentation. Thematic structure of the exhibition: Born in Kostomuksha: 1. The city (and its elements) 2. Objects (and achievements) 3. Enterprises (and corporations) 4. Organizations (and communities) 5. Monuments (and memorial sites) 6. Happenings (and specific events) 7. People (and "names") ******************* The projects’ corporate identity was also developed to be used in all project documents such as letterheads, letters, business cards and printed materials for all participating museums. ACTIVITY 4. Holding a closed competition "Museum Hypertext of Karelia. Modules, Junctions, Links" In the beginning of the project a group of designers was formed out of the Russian experts in museum exhibitions that comprise: 1. Expomania Ltd., Moscow 2. Ludi Architects Ltd., St.Petersburg 3. Creative group (artist Sergei Terenyev and Artnavolok Ltd.), Petrozavodsk These three design organizations took part in the Opening Karelia workshop in March 2013 to get an understanding about the project's goals. Along with the development concepts and exhibitions' scenario concepts a technical specification was developed for each museum (Sortavala, Kostomuksha and Medvezhyegorsk) to hold a closed competition for the exhibition designs. Together with additional materials about the museums and the matrices which were filled in by the museums the technical specification was sent to the competition participants. On September 2-5, 2013 the designers undertook a trip to Sortavala, Kostomuksha, Medvezhyegorsk and Petrozavodsk to see the museums' premises. The closed competition comprised 2 stages: 1. Participants submit design drafts; the winner is chosen; 2. The winner makes design projects for the three museums; a technical specification for renovation works is written. In order to choose the winner, a special experts'’ council was formed. Based on the submitted design drafts Artnavolok Ltd. from Petrozavodsk was announced a winner. The evaluation of design drafts was based on a 3-point rating scale: 1 - low 2 - medium 3 - high (the following information is originally presented in the table format) LUDI ARCHITECTS: 9 points Adaptation of the contents of both the project and museums 1 Concept 1 Creative design 2 Compliance with the technical specification 2 Feasibility 3 EXPOMANIA: 11 points Adaptation of the contents of both the project and museums 1 Concept 1 Creative design 3 Compliance with the technical specification 3 Feasibility 3 ARTNAVOLOK: 12 points Adaptation of the contents of both the project and museums 3 Concept 3 Creative design 2 Compliance with the technical specification 2 Feasibility 2 where Adaptation of the contents of both the project and museums, Concept, Creative design, Compliance with the technical specification and Feasibility are the criteria. A contract was signed with Artnavolok Ltd. and the creative group from Petrozavodsk comprising artist Sergei Terentyev who has extensive experience in making exhibitions for the Republic of Karelia and young designer Egor Permyakov (Artnavolok Ltd.) started their work on developing the design projects for the three museum exhibitions. Unfortunately, with time it turned out that the mutual understanding and communication within the creative group has not been properly organized and the young designer doesn't have enough experience in drafting engineering designs and descriptions. According to the plan the design projects for all three museums were supposed to be ready by January 15, 2014 and renovations and the production of exhibitions were to be followed right after. But in reality the first design project for the Medvezhyegorsk museum was ready only in March 2014. They started working on the second design project for the Kostomuksha museum only in April 2014 which will be ready in the middle of May 2014. After the preliminary work and measurements inside and outside the Sortavala museum done by the team from Petrozavodsk it was decided to sign a contract for making an exhibition design for this museum with another design company, Expomania Ltd. from St.Petersburg. It scored second in the closed competition. The decision was made by the project managers when it was clear that the Petrozavodsk team will not meet the deadlines. The design project for Sortavala should be ready by the end of April 2014 and the exhibition will be created and set up in September 2014 so that the visit tour scheduled for the fall 2014 happens in time. ACTIVITY 5. Holding a Russian-Finnish symposium "Horizons of the Euregio Karelia region. Museums 3.0." On February 6-7, 2014 Joensuu hosted a Russian-Finnish symposium "Horizons of the Euregio Karelia region. Museums 3.0". Over 60 participants representing different professional fields came together to talk about modern museum strategies, museum information technologies, museum marketing and communication. The symposium was moderated by Elena Zelentsova, the first deputy head of the Moscow Department for Culture. Experts from Moscow were invited to take part in the symposium. Among them were art critic Georgy Nikich, museum designer Nickolai Nikishin, experts of the Museum Solutions creative group Natalia Kopelyanskaya and Alexander Artamonov, expert of the Museum Development Center Darya Agapova. Representatives of the cultural authorities of Russia and Finland, IT experts, experts in marketing and designers were also invited. During the symposium the participants were introduced to a new approach in creating modern exhibitions called the museum hypertext as a perspective and flexible model to establish an effective connection between the museum and the visitor. The concepts and the design projects which were developed during the project for the new exhibitions in the museums of Medvezhyegorsk, Kostomuksha and Sortavala were also introduced. The highlight of the symposium program was the presentation of an Open Karelia museum information system based on the hypertext principle which is being created for the museums of the Euregio Karelia region. The system was tested for the first time in the exhibition of the North Karelia Museum, Joensuu. During the symposium the Finnish and Russian experts made presentations on information technologies in the museum field and how they can be used. A round table "Towards museum 3.0" was held. The participants also discussed the idea and the concept of the interactive game "Opening Karelia" which is to be produced during the project. The partners from the North Karelia Museum presented their Virtual Sortavala program module. The second day gave start to the educational program for museum specialists. Among the topic discussed during day 2 were the museum communication 3.0 and how to work with today's visitors, marketing of museum products and services, and the key terms of the new marketing strategy for the Euregio Karelia museums (new markets, target groups, services, souvenir products, and promotion technologies). The symposium program as well as all the presentations can be traced at the project's website. On February 6, 2014 the Destination - Karelia photo and multimedia exhibition by Anastasia Khoroshilova (Russia - Germany) and Jaakko Heikkila (Finland) was opened in the Carelicum cultural and tourist center as part of the symposium program. ACTIVITY 6. Photo and multimedia exhibition "Destination - Karelia" During the preparation for the exhibition several trips were undertaken by photographers Anastasia Khoroshilova (Russia-Germany) and Jaakko Heikkila (Finland) to the Euregio Karelia region. The first photo trip was taken by Anastasia Khoroshilova in June 2013. Two more trips for Anastasia Khoroshilova and Jaakko Heikkila were organized in August 2013 to the cities and villages of the region. Both artists focused on Karelia with its historical, ethnographical, natural, geographical, social and cultural diversity. They viewed Karelia as a unique place which, on one hand, is separated by the state border of Russia and Finland and by the social, military and economic history. And on the other hand this area has a lot of common features that form the phenomenon called the Euregio Karelia region. Anastasia Khoroshilova focused on making a series of portraits of the residents of Karelia who guided her through the cities and villages they live in and the places that matter to them. Through this exhibition both photographers made an attempt to show how the inner world and the identity of the local people correlate with the national split by traditions, historical memory and the way of life. The answers can be found in the endless photo sheet by Anastasia Khoroshilova and the photo and audio installation by Jaakko Heikkila. The exhibition was displayed in 4 cities: - Moscow, ZIL cultural center, 21.09. - 27.10.2013; - St.Petersburg, Peter and Paul Fortres (Exhibition Hall "Postern and Casemate of the Gosudarev Bastion"), 05.11. - 24.11.2013; - Joensuu, Carelicum cultural, museum and tourist center, 06.02. - 05.03.2014; - Petrozavodsk, City exhibition hall, 14.03. - 04.04.2014. In Moscow the exhibition was held along with the 5th Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art and was included into the program of the biennial. In all venues the exhibition was opened by curator Georgy Nikich. In Moscow, St.Petersburg and Joensuu photographers Anastasia Khoroshilova and Jaakko Heikkila joined the opening ceremonies. Press conferences for mass media were held during all exhibition openings. The exhibition aroused great interest and positive feedback from the visitors, the photo shooting characters, and the media representatives. The representatives of the Karelian Communities were among the guests of the exhibition openings in Moscow and St.Petersburg. The photo shooting characters were special guests at the opening in Petrozavodsk and enjoyed a Skype conversation with Anastasia Khoroshilova from Berlin. Quantitative results: - 3 photo trips to more than 10 cities and villages of the Euregio Karelia region; - 4 exhibitions in 4 cities; - Over 7 000 exhibition visitors; - 1000 copies of the exhibition catalog (in Russian and English). ACTIVITY 7. Developing an open museum information system of the Euregio Karelia region and creating its content During the past year the project team and the participating museums worked their way from the idea to the clear vision of the information system and the perspectives of its development in the post-project period. The work that has been done can be divided into two parts: development of the system and creation of the content. 1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEM The first step was to understand and comprehend the idea of museum hypertext and find ways to implement the idea taking into account available technologies, funding and timeframes. The team focused on elaborating the draft technical documentation in order to develop the vision and define functional features of the system as well as on analyzing present and future information systems in Russia used in the museum field. The project team agreed that in order to fully correspond to the idea of the project, the Open Karelia museum information system should take into account personal preferences of the users, provide freedom in their behavior when choosing the objects of interest and tours, have a flexible retrieval system and an open architecture for further work and decrease of costs in the postproject period. The information systems that were analyzed could be divided into two big groups: - Data bases such as Europeana, Google cultural project, Musketti system (Finland), KAMIS system (Russia). Being different, they do have common features - big information content, significant financial and organizational support, participation of important state and commercial structures. On the other hand, as a rule they are closed systems in terms of information and possibility of using it. They are targeted at specific tasks to record museum objects and have a number of technical, financial and organizational requirements; - Information reporting system (guides, audio guides, etc.). Guides have relatively closed and limited information on particular museums with no possibility for fast changes of content and a requirement of qualified technical support. Mobile applications require constant modifications to comply with operational systems of mobile devices updated by the producers. SmartMuseum was considered the most interesting development which boasts features like modular programming and rapid introduction. The project team met with the SmartMuseum management to discuss possibilities of using this system in the project. Negotiations were also held with other developers such as SurfCity guides, OPAS system (France), etc. To specify technical capacities of the system, contact was taken to Softline group that represents the Google company in Russia. A teleconference was held with Google USA. The following companies were selected as potential developers of the information system: the IT Park of the Petrozavodsk university, I-Free company (developers of "Walking in Oranienbaum" augmented reality program), Wikipedia community in Russia (developers of WikiSemantic program product), Fruct association. Some of the potential developers were invited to take part in the Opening Karelia workshop in March 2013. The goal was to give a clear picture of the philosophy and target groups of the information system and its functional features, to introduce project experts and to collect feedback. During the workshop the potential developers were targeted at finding options for the system architecture that would most correspond to the idea of the hypertext. The following suggestions were made: 1. Data base with information retrieval also in external resources; 2. Free search in available resources, a museum information retrieval engine; 3. Combination of both options with possible use of advantages of each system. It was also considered important that the system provides data from available museum information systems, both Russian and Finnish, and that the data formats are followed for possible integration into the Europeana system for fuller representation of the Euregio Karelia region in the European information space. The following are the essential details of the system: consideration of behavior patterns of the visitors and their locations, high level of personalization, modular programming, new participants in the future, and integration with social networks. The system should provide access to the maximum number of devices such as touch screens and information kiosks, personal computers, mobile devices. Wi-Fi is a must. QR codes and other tags such as NFS and geotracking are appropriate. After the workshop a series of experts' sessions were organized in participating museums to gather information and to evaluate museums from the technical side. The team summarized information, built their vision about the system and collected proposals from potential system developers: the IT Park of the Petrozavodsk University, I-Free company, SoftLine group, SurgCity guide, Fruct association, WikiSemantic development. The decision was made in favor of the Open Innovations Association FRUCT. The choice was made based on the following criteria: - Price; - Open software used to decrease further costs to maintain the system in the postproject period; - Use of Geo2tag platform as a data storage which is one of the leaders in geolocation systems in the market of open free systems. Information created and published by the project participants can be used as the basis to produce other applications such as audio guides, virtual tours, etc. through any other project; - Convenient information input; it is suggested that information is entered both manually and automatically from different sources and data bases to provide prompt update of information in case of changes. This is one of the modern ways of the Internet development in general. - Prompt joining of other parties for the mutual benefit - expansion of information, introduction of different objects and links. - Wide variety of means of visual representation of stored information which is easily supplemented by different modules. Presentation of the Open Karelia museum information system in a testing mode was made during the Russian-Finnish symposium "Horizons of the Euregio Karelia region. Museums 3.0" in February 2014. The symposium participants had an opportunity to evaluate the hypertext principle of the exhibition of the North Karelia Museum both inside and outside the museum getting information about objects and sights in the center of Joensuu. The system was demonstrated using both tablets bought through the project and personal mobile phones and got high evaluation of users and IT experts. Cooperation with the Finnish partners and the Finland's National Board of Antiquities should be specially mentioned. It is likely that this is the first common information environment being created for our region which makes the information open and lets people use it for cooperation and cultural tourism purposes. Special thanks go to the North Karelia Museum, Joensuu for their active involvement and committed and responsible approach to the implementation of the project. A special module as part of the Open Karelia museum information system was developed for disabled people (http://hypertext-mobile.geo2tag.org/audioguide). It's very important for them to have an opportunity beforehand to plan a route both inside and outside the museum. Such plans should take into consideration individual restrictions. Fro instance, a route for physically challenged people should show ramps. For visually impaired people navigation should contain voice messages. When exhibition is adjusted to the visually impaired people, sound information about exhibits is primary. Through the project the exhibition of the National Museum of the Republic of Karelia will be supplemented by such module. The National Museum of the Republic of Karelia as a project partner applied the Open Karelia museum information system and an audio guide module for people with special needs to the Museum Geek Internet festival of museum multimedia. The Festival is created to support innovative computer and multimedia programs for museums. Its aim is to foreground the topic of new professional competencies of the museum community. The winner of the Festival will be selected based on public voting at the Festival's web page. The voting is open until May 18, 2014. More about the Festival at http://gmir.ru/eng/special/festival/participate/information/. 2. CONTENT OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEM Work in this direction started in March 2013 during the Opening Karelia workshop. The participating museums made presentations of their museums introducing the most important points for the project, namely the content of their exhibitions and collections, and local sights. This information was essential for developing profile of the Euregio Karelia region in its diversity of cultural, natural, economic and other features and finding common traits. During the preparation for the workshop the research team suggested five initial topics as possible links ethnography and folklore, stone and architecture, war, transport routes, and place of birth. The workshop participants elaborated on the topics during work group sessions and offered a system of categories and layers of information display. They created the development models and interconnections of different layers to be used in the system. They presented the region as information flows that penetrate and connect it in different directions and ways and ended in the vast cloud of conceptions and meanings. During the experts' sessions with assistance from museums' staff objects, personalities and exhibits were selected out of a great variety of available information which can form intersections and links with other museums. The project group developed a matrix to collect structured information as possible content for the information system. Apart from working with participating museums the project team negotiated with potential partners that have information resources and data bases on historical and cultural heritage. Agreements have been reached with the Mining Road project about the content exchange. Mutual understanding has been reached with the Petrozavodsk State University. A cooperation agreement was signed with the National Archive of the Republic of Karelia. Information partners were found in Sortavala – the Serdobol magazine and the Kronid Gogolev's Gallery. Consent was received for using materials from the most popular websites in Karelia (Republican center for monuments preservation, website of Andrei Heninen, Visit Karelia, Center of cultural initiatives, etc.). A research group responsible for content is constantly selecting reliable and interesting information, edits, translates and puts it into the Open Karelia information system. As soon as it was possible to enter information into the system the museums' staff started putting texts and photographs into the system. Apart from the manual input of information, automatic update of data is also possible. Interaction with the Musketti museum system is successfully proceeding from the technical side. The content team has also suggested Wikipedia as one of the possible sources of information. A set of criteria and parameters is currently being defined for the selection of information from Wikipedia to the Open Karelia system. Selection of objects and exhibits from museum exhibitions has taken much of the time as well. They should become special intersection, hyper junctions and entry points both to the Open Karelia information system and to the common museum environment of the Euregio Karelia region which is being created through the project. Work on making additional audio and multimedia materials for the system has also begun. Scenarios for 12 videos for the Medvezhyegorsk museum were written to be part of the new exhibition and also to be downloaded to the Open Karelia information system. Similar work will be carried out for the other museums participating in the project. Development and content creation of the Virtual Sortavala module for the North Karelia museum are under way. ACTIVITY 8. Renovation and technical equipment of participating museums, including engineering design The fortified region area in Medvezhyegorsk was partly cleaned and improved. These works will be continued in summer 2014. Information signs will also be placed there. According to the requirements specification renovations were made in the Medvezhyegorsk museum in its entrance area, a smaller exhibition room and the corridor where the new exhibition section is being created under the name "The Zaonezhsky Junction". In late April 2014 work on making the exhibition and purchasing exhibition equipment will begin. Renovations, creation of new exhibitions and purchase of equipment for the museums in Kostomuksha and Sortavala will start in summer 2014. The list of equipment is specified, except for the museums of Kostomuksha and Sortavala.