Shkurlov Igor Vladimirovich
Head of the department of the computer and information provision
of the Smolensk State preserve-museum
Creation of the united info-communicational network
for the museums of the Smolensk region as a means of providing free
and equal public access to the cultural heritage.
Museums as part of the cultural heritage
Alongside with other memory institutions, museums are responsible for preserving the cultural heritage.
However, apart from libraries and archives (which preserve mainly written sources), museums keep a far
wider range of objects – practically, every kind of objects that man deals with. Like libraries, museums
can be universal, i.e. keep any kind of objects, or specialized. “Universal” museums include all the local
studies and history museums, beginning with municipal (district) museums (which constitute the lowest
level of the museum hierarchy) to federal museums.
Irrespectively of its hierarchical significance, each museum possesses and preserves aome part of cultural
heritage which, taken together, create the whole picture that can meet the requirements and needs of a
specific person. Being a citizen of the RF, he/she has the right to free access to the subject of his/her interest.
Access to museum segment of cultural heritage
Museum collections hold millions of storage units. But today only 10% of museum resources are accessible to museum visitors. This is the approximate number of subjects displayed at the open expositions,
temporary exhibitions, etc. The rest is kept in the reserves.
Some part of the subjects has never been exposed, another part has been temporarily exposed, and yet
another part cannot be exposed taking into consideration its safety.
The exhibits are kept in special storage rooms, behind the fender, guarded by security service and alarms.
The access to them is strictly limited even for museum workers – not all museum workers (to say nothing
of common people) can get in touch with such exhibits.
It’s next to impossible to get the access to storage funds. And that is normal, as cultural heritage is, and
should be, protected and preserved. But then, what is to be done about the citizens’ right to information
and to free access to the subjects of cultural heritage? The development of information technologies (IT)
gives the museums a solution for this problem. In fact, it is rather a tool, an instrument for solving the
problem. Museum is not like a bookstand where one can pick up whatever he likes, hoping to find something interesting. We must offer the user an E-catalogue with the search system, and to do that we have to
make an exact and scrupulous description and classification of thousands and, in some cases, hundreds of
thousands objects. All that is to be done by one or two museum workers. Digitalization is also a tremendous part of the job. The beginning of the work is urged by its extreme labouriousness. We are developing from information community into knowledge community, Before offering the information to the user,
it should be, first of all, collected, processed, structurized (and made convenient for handling).
Museums of the Smolensk region
The Smolensk region houses 3 regional museums comprising 22 museums, including the Smolensk State
preserve-museum that unites 16 museums, and 24 municipal museums – 46 regional and municipal museums, in total.
At present, the museums of the Smolensk region hold about 500,000 exhibits of the main fund; less than
10% of it are constantly exhibited. Exhibiting more units is impossible. Many cultural heritage displays
are temporary and can’t be exposed permanently or periodically; an enormous part of these objects is
stored only in reserves and the mass visitor has no access to them.
Regional Museum Info-communication Network Project
The project was designed within the framework of the regional specified Programme “Electronic Smolensk Region” for 2001-2010, in accordance with issue “50” Design and creation of programmes for
providing Public Access to open information systems (based also in “budget” organizations), as well as
Establishing the system of “open” computer centres and Internet centres in educational institutions” within the specified federal programme “Electronic Russia (2002-2010)”, as well as “the programme for cultural development of the Smolensk region for 200-2005” developed by Culture Committee of the Smolensk Administration in cooperation with the RF Ministry of Culture and the Culture Studies Institute of
the RFMC.
One of the goals of the “Programme for development of culture of the Smolensk region for years
2000/2005” is establishing the computer network connecting the culture institutions of the Smolensk region into a single information community.
Multimedia technology and global information network of I-net became an integral part of the national
information culture. Application of new information technologies would make possible converting the
most valuable exhibits of Smolensk museums and creating E-funds of the Smolensk region’s museum
resources; also, the information technologies allow to present the information in I-net and on CD-Rom.
Uniting the text and graphic information in the computer system paves the way for solving the problem of
preserving and providing constant accessibility and enlarging the representation of cultural heritage objects and museum exhibits in I-net’s virtual space.
In the cultural heritage system, the museum network is the best developed structure intended for solving a
wide range of problems and tasks of guarding, protecting and use of the historical objects. The museum
network is, in itself, a potential means of encouraging investments in the Smolensk region, but, in its turn,
it needs serious investments and assimilation of additional finance sources.
In our days, the museum network is not only the keeper of the cultural heritage, but also a basis of social,
economic and cultural development of the Smolensk region. But to fulfil this function, museums need
vital modernizing consisting , first of all, in introducing new organizing and managing technologies. creating the regional computer network, we are thus going from supporting some separate museums to stimulating a rise in the whole museum system.
The main goals:
1. Creating material and technical base in the museums of the Smolensk region for realization of the project:
a. Stage 1: PC installation for creating an E-catalogue of museum objects in order to use the catalogue
within the united regional E-catalogue of museum objects;
b. Stage 2: PC installation for providing free access for the citizens to information about the cultural
heritage of the Smolensk region and the world cultural heritage via I-Net.
In 2004-2010, the region’s museums will be provided with automatized working places supplied with a
PC, a scanner, a printer, a modem.
The provision will go according to the following schedule:
2004 – 4 museums
2005 – 4 museums
2006 – 4 museums
2007 – 4 museums
2008 – 6 museums
2009 – 4 museums
2010 – 2 museums
2. Providing the museums of the Smolensk region with specialized software for creating the E-catalogue
in the informal imput/output of the museum subjects description. Programmes: AS-Museum-3, KAMIS
3. Providing instruction and training for the museum workers in PC operating for the fulfillment of the
task.
The instruction and training will be carried on during the annual seminars that will be held on the basis of
the Smolensk preserve-museum resource centre. Besides, for the museum workers business trips will be
provided to other museums that have already been supplied with automized working places, in order to
study the organization of work. The resource centre of the preserve-museum will consult museum workers on their coming to Smolensk, as well as on the phone and through E-mail.
4. Creating the I-Net portal “Cultural Heritage of the Smolensk region” with automatic information processing and placing it in WWW-server. Design and creation of the portal will be carried on in 2006-2007.
In 2008 the portal is to be placed in the I-Net. This is pressed by the necessity for the museums to create
their catalogues of museum objects, to work out the technology of their unification and uniting into a
whole E-catalogue, to make a complex research of the united museum resources and to analyze the results
achieved. For that, in my opinion, the education experts’ consultations will be necessary to work out the
decision on the portal’s structure and development tendencies.
5. Creating clustery Centres of the project support:
a. Stage 1: organizing the Centre on the basis of the Smolensk State preserve-museum
b. Stage 2: organizing clustery Centres on the basis of distant districts’ museums
One of the essential components of the project is creating the database of the digital images of the museum subjects. While the scanning process is not very complicated and does not require complex technical
devices, the digitalization process for 3-dimensional objects of different sizes, as well as for brand marks
or small units, or for paintings, is rather complicated.
An expensive digital camera, special accessories, light and photo devices, a tripod and, also, special professional knowledge would be necessary.
Providing all that to each and every municipal museum is impossible and unnecessary, as it won’t solve
the problem. The number of municipal museum’s worker’s staff is normally 2 to 5 workers, and we are
not likely to find a person who would study the technology at the professional level.
The problem will be solved by supplying the largest principal clustery Centres of the project support
(such as the Smolensk preserve-museum, Gagarin’s Memorial museum, Dorogobuzh History Studies museum, Roslavl’ History Studies museum) with a portable photo-recording unit (comprising a photocamera, a tripod, lighting devices and fixing devices for museum objects).
6. Organizing places for free access to information about the cultural heritage:
For the access to this information, museums will be supplied with PCs with I-Net access that will hold
information about I-Net addresses of museums in Russia and abroad, and the reference to WEB-resources
that have information about cultural heritage. Besides, every museum will use its PC for informing the
visitors about its collections, historical and cultural objects that are not exhibited but kept in the reserve
halls. The way realization of this issue will be defined while the project is carried out.
7. Regular information supply and renovation of the portal should be organized, as well as control over
the objective and timely information is to be provided.
8. Sending and getting business information should be organized through E-mail.
9. Centres of free access should be also used for presenting the potential projects and programmes of the
Administration of the Smolensk region.
10. The united regional catalogue of museum objects should be formed.
11. Digitalization of museum objects should be given a support through the Centres.