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By Nadezhda Brakker and Leonid Kujbyshev -November 2002
Nadezhda Brakker and Leonid Kujbyshev of Centre PIC provide us with a view of new trends in state information policy in the Russian cultural sphere including legislation together with examples of IST in Russian cultural institutions and new perspectives on international co-operation. This article is based on a paper given by Nadezda at EVA2002 London.
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'Culture x Technology' is an extremely important strategic area for Russia. Despite the economic problems of the last decade, substantial progress has been made in this field and with international help from organisations such as Mellon, the Soros Foundation, UNESCO and the European Union, the pace is increasing.
This article seeks to present an overview of the Information Society & Technology across the whole spectrum of Russian culture including not only archives, libraries and museums but also contemporary art and the non-moveable heritage, (architecture, monuments etc).
We will also give an account of EVA Russia since 1998 with its strategic role in promoting relationships in 'Culture x Technology', both within Russia and between Russia and the international community, especially the other parts of the former USSR and the EU. In 2002, efforts to help bring Russia into the international project partnerships in 'Culture x Technology' with the European Union have been strengthened by the new CULTIVATE Russia, building on previous and current efforts of the EC's EVA Cluster project and EVA Networking projects [1].
A final section briefly presents key conclusions and future perspectives.
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| Figure 1: Screenshot: The Russian Public Centre of Internet Technologies |
According to the results of research carried out by Russian Public Centre of Internet Technologies (ROCIT [2]), in 2001 the number of Internet connections reached 5 million (compared with 3.4 million in 2000) and the audience of Runet (Russian Internet) is now 18 million users (11.4 million users in 2000). The regular audience is estimated at 8 million users (those who use the Internet at least once a week). At the same time the percentage of corporate users (those who use the Internet from an office, an educational institution, a library or other point of common access) grew to 65%, which is 5% more than in 2000. Most of the increase in users of Runet was due to so-called irregular users who visited the Internet more than once. This means that the Internet is still needed for work and education and that the effort to organise common access Internet points in libraries, museums, clubs, educational institutions has not been wasted and brings in new Internet users. This reinforces the idea that for Russia with its vast territory and poor population the possibility of Internet access in places of common use in libraries, in the universities, or at school is very important.
79% of Russian Internet users are younger then 45. Stable growth of Internet users has been identified among managers (20%) and students (30%). 35% of the Runet audience use the Internet at home and 73% of them have a monthly income below $100 per person.
Geographically the Russian Internet audience is still concentrated in Moscow (57,2%) and Saint-Petersbourg (9,1%); 72 second level domains are in the capitals of Russia, (Moscow and Saint-Petersburg), though more activity was registered in the regions in 2001. A considerable digital divide continues to exist between Moscow and the regions of Russia.
The speed of Runet audience growth is somewhat lower then in previous years. The Spylog Company considers that the reasons for this recent trend are related to the approaching saturation point as regards Moscow Internet usage, the poor quality of telephone connections in the regions and a low level of awareness of the capacities and benefits of the Internet. ROCIT considers that the Russian Internet audience is not growing very quickly because of the high cost of personal computers and the low availability of Internet connections using other cheaper terminals (specialised TV devices, for example) [3] .
In the beginning of March 2002 the largest search engine in Runet, Yandex [4], estimated Russian Internet volume at 1 terabyte (240 bytes or 1024 gigabytes). In 2000 the Russian Internet became much "wider", that is, a lot of new sites with just a few pages appeared. This was because in 2000 several large hosting portals (like narod.ru) were opened. They gave anyone free space for sites, third level domain addresses (such as xxx.narod.ru) and easy tools to create Web pages without special training. By contrast, in 2001 there was a tendency towards growth "in depth" and sites grew larger.
The overall volume of Runet more than doubled whilst the number of new sites was smaller than in the previous year. The median volume of a site (server) became larger then in the "pre-hosting" period and is now 2.5 megabytes. According to Spylog analysis, the proportion of cultural resources on Runet constituted 17.6% of the sites visited.
Federal bodies started to pay serious attention to the Internet and to the information society after President Putin signed the Global Information Society Okinava Hartia adopted by G8 in July 2000. Consequently Russian State Information Society policy is becoming more and more detailed.
On 10 January 2002, President Putin signed a federal law on electronic signatures, thereby rendering an electronic signature legally equivalent to a graphic signature; therefore a document signed electronically retains all its pre-degitial properties. A law on electronic business was discussed in the State Duma and passed the first reading.
A Federal Programme "Electronic Russia 2002 - 2010" has been adopted. It states that development of information and communication technology (ICT) is a global trend in world development. Modern information and communication technology plays a decisive role in economic competitiveness and integration into the world economic system. It is improving effectiveness on all levels in both public and private sectors. ICT gives a technological basis for the development of civil society as it gives open and prompt access to information through the global Internet. The Programme will enable maximum use of intellectual potential, provide a way to enter the global post-industrial economy on a basis of co-operation and open information, overcome the "digital divide" and protect human rights including the right of free access to information and the right to protect private information [5]. It is a pity that the Ministry of Culture is not an official partner of the Programme but cultural heritage projects can be supported on a project basis.
The government decree on Internet connections in post offices all over Russia aims to provide Internet access to people lacking facilities and skills. It is planned to organise centres of collective Internet access in 1,860 regional post-offices. In December 2001 the KiberPost@ Net had 120 Internet points.
In 2001 the Ministry of Education of Russia, in co-operation with regional authorities completed a programme of computerisation in country schools, supplying hardware and software together with teacher training in 97% of schools [6].
Several projects involving training courses for school teachers are managed by the Federation of Internet Education [7]. One of the projects, "Generation.ru", is supported by an oil company, YUKOS. The goal of "Generation.ru" is to overcome a serious lag between Russia and other countries in ICT skills and equipment in educational institutions. The project will run for 5 years and organise Education Internet Centres in 50 regions where more then 250,000 school teachers will learn how to use the Internet for education. These teachers will be able to teach more than 10 million pupils. In July 2001 the 25th centre was opened in Orechovo-Zuevo. 26,122 school teachers were trained under the project between 21March 2000 and 4 July 2002.
The Federal Programme "Electronic Government" is proving very successful: the official Internet sites of the President, of the Security Council, the Russian Government, [8], of the State Duma, of all Ministers, and of regional administrations [9] have been opened. The Internet site of the Ministry of Taxes was the winner in the contest for the "National Internet Prize".
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| Figure 2: Screenshot: The Saint-Petersburg Portal |
The Ministry of Culture also has an Internet site [10] which is becoming more important for cultural sector management. The site keeps information on the Ministry structure and staff, a reference list of federal and regional cultural institutions, documents, plans and programmes, laws on museums, libraries, etc., together with news and other useful information.
Some Internet servers of regional administrations have pages on culture with lists of institutions, news and events, art galleries, etc.
At the Saint-Petersburg portal [11] the News of Culture section plays an important role. It keeps a catalogue of museums, palaces, parks, cathedrals, churches of Saint-Petersburg, their location on the city map, information and links to Web sites.
The Art, History and Culture section of the ALL Moscow Portal [12] gives access to Moscow sites, Moscow as depicted on old engravings, paintings and photographs, Moscow churches and old Russian art. The list of Moscow museums, (though not complete) offers links to museum WEB-sites, theatres and concert halls references etc.
Not only capitals present their portals or servers on the Internet. There are a number of valuable regional information resources. A number of Internet sites containing regional cultural resources have been opened in the Russian Internet sector. Just a small list of regional cultural sites will show the tendency: "Yaroslavl museums together" [13], "Museums of Nizhny Novgorod" [14]"Museums of Omsk and Irtysh region" [15] "Culture of Karelia" [16] "Museums of Novgorod" [17]and others.
For example, a new Internet server "Museums of Siberia " presents 7 museums of the region and is addressed to public and to professionals. Each museum site has got the same structure: Museum guide, News, Museum Shop, Exhibition Exchange, Contacts, Search Projects, References, Forum. When Siberia site is in Russian, "Culture of Karelia" is in Russian, English and Finnish and contains information resources on education, tourism, museums, libraries, monuments of the region.
Another example is the Information portal on Orel city and Orel region [18] which contains news, culture, reference-book, churches and museums, artists, theatre festival (Russian). More examples: Vologda region Internet site [19] is in Russian, English, German and French; Evenkia [20] has English pages with nature, tourism, traditions, rituals, list of artists and an art gallery.
Culture of Russia [21] is an official Portal of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. The project was started in 2000. The idea of the Portal is to present Russian Culture and to serve as an educational resource for a wide audience. The pilot version has a news and events section and three ways in: topic entry (fine art, literature, architecture, theatre, cinema, music, applied arts), type entry (persons, works, stories, events, sites, cultural institutions guide and board) and a time scale. The pilot version contains 1500 objects, 252 persons, 484 works, 557 images, 557 organisations, 16 articles, 2457 links between the objects and 60684 words in the searching guide. It will be bilingual but now only menus and the front page are in English. The Portal has a nice design and is going to be a good encyclopaedia of Russian Culture with its own rich information resource and some links to other cultural information resources. Culture of Russia does not create its own catalogue of Internet resources but links to portals and servers with rich catalogues of cultural resources. Because of lack of financing the portal is still in a pilot version.
Libraries are ahead of other cultural sectors in IST. In many libraries of Moscow and Saint-Petersbourg (for example, library system Kievskaya [22]) and in all large state regional libraries there are mediathekas or Internet-halls with free Internet access. Many libraries provide their catalogues on the Internet. The list of available library catalogues can be found at the site of the Russian Library Association [23] which plays an important role in the process of library informatisation and develops the RUSMARC format. The Library Department of the Ministry of Culture organises and actively supports IST processes in libraries. Since 1997 the Department leads a specialised programme LIBNET (Library Net) [24] "Development of All-Russia Information Library Computer Net". A new project of the LIBNET programme is a National Information Library Centre [25]
The first stage of the project (2001 - 2003) is to create a specialised net for the united electronic catalogue of Russian libraries. The catalogue will play a very important role and will make it possible to obtain information on the stocks of all the largest libraries of Russia, to organise intelligent document delivery to users all over Russia, to co-ordinate the development of library stocks and to organise shared cataloguing for the majority of Russian libraries. Currently the National Information Library Centre keeps catalogues of new books of the Russian State Library (Moscow) and the Russian National Library (Saint-Petersbourg) and a mechanism for downloading catalogue descriptions which can be used by any subscribing library.
At the end of 1998 an 18-month project under TACIS (Creating an Information System for the Russian State Library) was started: the Russian State Library (RSL) Information Project. It aimed to support the modernisation of the Russian State Library from a traditional to a digital library, introducing new information technology to meet the growing information needs of the Russian market and bring to life the vast resources of the national library. The TACIS project was successfully finished in 2000 with the conference "Digital Future of the Libraries". On March 12, 2002 the Russian State Library announced a new international project "Development of digital services system for RSL users". The main components of the project are:
The project runs for 18 months from January 2002 till June 2003 and is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The British Council represents Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in RSL. The project leader is Monika Segbert.
Museums are some way behind libraries in IST. Electronic catalogues of Russian museums contain no more then 10,8% of Russian museum holdings and these catalogues are without images in the main. There are practically no museum catalogues on open access though there are some leaders. For example, the State Hermitage Internet site [26], designed with IBM support, is considered to be the best and was awarded the National Internet prize in 2001 and 2002. In 2001 the first museum on-line shop with all needed components of e-commerce opened at the State Hermitage site [27]. The State Rybinsk architecture and art museum-reserve was the first museum in Russia to open its full collection catalogue on the Internet [28] with good search facilities. The catalogue is based on the specialised software for museum collection management IAMIS2000, designed by ALTSOFT (Saint-Petersbourg).
The Portal "Museums of Russia" [29] plays the leading role in presenting museum information on the Internet. Since 1996 this portal has been developed by the non-commercial institution Russian Cultural Heritage Net. Since 1996 the portal has been improved several times to answer growing user needs and has won more then 30 awards, the National Internet Prize being one of them. Among cultural sites the portal is the first in number of citations and in number of visitors (2.3 million). The portal is important both for professionals and for the public and includes:
The portal plans to add a children's section, cultural tourism section, Internet-shop and a gallery.
The (museum) Association on Documentation and Information Technologies (ADIT) [30] plays a large role in museum IST activities. Since 1997 ADIT organises annual conferences "Museums and Information Space: informatisation and cultural heritage" in different cities. The 6th ADIT conference was in Nizhny Novgorod May 27 - 31, 2002. ADIT is a partner in the EU "Open Heritage" project, aiming to present the Karelia region in the open European net. Another project (RUSSIAN DIMENSION) was born as a consequence of ADIT participation in OPEN HERITAGE. The project develops models for applying new technologies to Russian regional memory institutions. The aim of the project is twofold. On one hand it provides services for the museum, ranging from network and facility management to promotion. On the other hand it presents the museum as a part of the cultural heritage of a region, thus strengthening the profile of the region and enhancing its attractiveness towards the cultural tourist [31].
The most proactive education techniques are used at "Project&Analysis Workshops" (PAW) organised and held by ADIT jointly with its partner, the Future Museum group. The key topics of PAW are Information Management in the Cultural Sphere, Information Technology and the Cultural Heritage. The workshops are targeted at administrators of culture departments and organisations, the staff of museums and libraries. A workshop of this kind is aimed primarily at generating ideas and developing them into projects. Participants of a PAW are not divided into trainers and students. Every workshop has participants, experts, co-ordinators and a facilitator who enables communication in the sessions. PAW are collective efforts at which problems are first identified and then ideas are generated and formed into projects. Activities include group work, master-classes, lectures, presentations, expert consultations and plenary sessions. In just fifteen months, over 300 heads of culture departments and museum and library staff came from various Russian regions to be trained at PAW. A follow-up on the workshops is the education manual on Information Technology and the Cultural Heritage now available [32][33].
Other professional museum associations also play an important role in the museum sector, the Association of Museum specialists of Russia (AMR) [34], for example. The AMR Resource Centre is a co-ordination and management body of AMR with the following goals:
Archives are the most "closed" part of the Russian cultural heritage though IST is bringing about considerable changes in this sector. The Federal Archive Service of Russia has an Internet site [35] with information on the archive sector, legislation, a catalogue of federal and regional archives, documents, a list of archiving institutions thematic data-bases, archive education information, a list of reference books and other publications, news and other useful information. A catalogue of the Moscow and Saint-Petersburg Archives in Russian and English [36] is based on a specialised data-base ArcheoBiblioBase (ABB). This was designed as a result of a Russian - USA joint project with the Russian Federal Archive Service, the State Historical Public Library and the Saint-Petersbourg branch of the Russian Academy of Science Archive.
"Personal Photodocuments Internet-catalogue of the Central State Archive of cinema and photo documents of Saint-Petersbourg" [37] is a good example of an on-line catalogue. Currently it provides access to 5000 document descriptions automatically generated from the archive database. The access mechanism is based on intranet-internet technologies and has a good search engine with effective searches on headings, key words and context. The importance of the on-line catalogue will grow since the full archive collection has 500 000 unique photo documents. The database is managed by archive specialists with technology and software developed by ALTSOFT (Saint-Petersbourg) [38].
A new project started in 2000 is the Russian Archives Online (RAO) the main objective of which is the creation and launching onto Internet of large volume databases containing the descriptions of audio and visual materials from Russian archival collections. It aims to provide access to archival documents for numerous users in Russia and worldwide. Although Russian archival collections are well organised on the basis of traditional, "pre-computer" methods, one can use their materials only after tiresome research efforts on-site having looked through cards of paper catalogues written either manually or with the help of a typewriter. Even in Russia there are few people who are aware of the rich audio and visual archival collections. Making on-line educational resources (in particular, connected with the history of Russia) based on archival collections constitutes a top priority activity within the framework of the project.
The project also foresees e-commerce, i.e. licensing archival audio and visual materials selected from specially created databases. The proceeds will be used for collection preservation. This has already begun. The project is supported by a number of international organisations - the US Agency for International Development, Internews, the Open Society Institute, UNESCO, as well as the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR). Apart from archival employees, the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics with the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow and Texas Universities, the Abamedia Company (USA) contribute to the development of the project.
Although the project was named Russian Archives Online only a little less than a year ago, the actual work began as far back as 1996 when a decision was made to create an electronic catalogue of the Russian State Archive for Documentaries and Photos in Krasnogorsk (RGAKFD). This Archive possesses the largest collection of documentaries and stills that reflect the history of Russia and Soviet republics. The Krasnogorsk Archive has in its stock more than 215 thousand reels of documentaries, more than 38,000 titles of which more than 1 thousand date back to before the Revolution. The Archive stores more than 1 million photos and negatives, as well as unique albums of the Tsarist Family. The Krasnogorsk Collection that represents an illustrated history of Russia from the middle of the XIX century arouses the interest not only of non-fiction filmmakers or mass media all over the world, but constitutes a major source of documentary materials for scientific and especially historical research The archival collection plays an even more important role for the whole range of activities connected with education both in Russia itself and beyond.
At present the database for the electronic catalogue of the Krasnogorsk Archive contains descriptions of the larger part of its collection of films (25,000 descriptions). The catalogue can be accessed on-line [39] and is distributed on CDs. Cataloguing continues and in a year the database will have descriptions of the whole film collection. This year an English version of the electronic catalogue has been started. A methodology has been developed and tested to use Systran Professional machine translation with the subsequent editing of the texts entered into the electronic catalogue database containing English descriptions of films from the RGAKFD Collection. 3,000 descriptions have been translated and launched on-line [40].As the analysis of the results gained shows, this methodology used for translating a large volume database into English gives a result that is quite acceptable from the point of view of quality at relatively low cost. The Krasnogorsk electronic catalogue will be wholly translated into English on the basis of this approach. Completing the Krasnogorsk Archive catalogue and its translation into English are financed by the Open Society Institute. Apart from the Krasnogorsk Archive catalogue, two other catalogues that represent the collection of the Russian State Archive for Scientific and Technical Documentation (RGANTD) have been made and launched on-line. This Archive stores a large number of unique photos and films about the history and development of astronautics, missiles and spaceships. Within the framework of the Project, a catalogue was made that includes 3 000 photos of the greatest interest and their descriptions from the Archive collection. Space photos cataloguing was sponsored by UNESCO. The catalogue was launched on-line [41] and its CD version has already been prepared.
An electronic catalogue containing descriptions of documentaries on space exploration from the collection of the Russian State Archive for Scientific and Technical Documentation has also been developed and launched on-line [42]. These activities were sponsored by the Open Society Institute. [43].
The portal 'Architecture of Russia' [44] has been on the net since July 1999 and deals with the history of Russian architecture, modern design and construction projects. It is addressed to architects, art-critics and those, who are interested in Russian culture. It covers the history of the architecture of Russia, non-movable heritage of history and culture and includes news, publications, contests, problems of restoration, educational institutions, bibliography and links, a catalogue of monuments (now 370 monuments, 940 photos) and catalogue of new buildings (in development). (English, Russian).
The catalogue had one "card" for each architectural monument. It consists of one photo, brief textual information and the plan or graphic reconstruction of the original view of a monument. There is the section "More" for most of the cards with detailed texts and additional illustrations. In the upper part of this page it is possible to choose how to search the catalogue (by alphabet, by chronology, by place, by architect, by style). According to the user's choice, a specified table of contents appears on the left to help to define the choice more precisely. Monument types (bridge, cathedral, church, chamber, commercial court etc.)
The alphabetical list is subdivided according to the general names of buildings (cathedral, church, mansion, etc). Within these main sections objects are organised alphabetically according to their conventional names. Churches are disposed by dedication (Trinity, Assumption, etc), other edifices by the most known appellation (Sheremetiev palace, Demidov palace, etc).
The chronological list is divided according to the main periods of the development of Russian architecture. Inside this section objects are placed in chronological sequence.
Architecture of Russia was awarded the Grand Prix at the Intel Internet Prize contest in the Art & Museums section in 2000.
"History and Cultural Monuments of Pskov and Pskov Region" [45], a full Internet catalogue of a region's non-movable heritage is the first in Russia. This is an Internet presentation of an image database developed and maintained by Pskov Research and Application Centre on History and Culture Monuments Preservation. The catalogue includes more than 300 full and well-structured architectural and historical descriptions of the most valuable monuments of Pskov and region with more then 1000 images and plans. The project is run by ALTSOFT (Saint-Petersbourg) [46].
Contemporary art and literature resources are more popular among the Internet user group then cultural heritage resources; that is why they are more interesting for the Internet portals earning their living from banner advertising.
Here are two examples of the most interesting projects in contemporary art resources which are growing to the level of portals very speedily:
The ARTINFO project was started in 1991 and now it is the largest in Russia Visual Arts Databank containing today 1241 authors, 6663 images and 240 establishments helping modern artists to sell images and works world wide. It has got news line which was a laureate of Intel Internet premium 2000 contest, music section and links to more than 100 of Contemporary Fine Art's Net resources that from the point of ARTINFO could be of great interest for both professionals and wide circle of art lovers.
"Russian Contemporary Art" is the biggest web-site telling about Contemporary Russian Art on the Internet and is based on the Guelman Gallery site [47]. The headlines of the site report about the main activities in Contemporary Art field: Artists, Critics, Organizations and others. The contents of the headlines are refreshed two or three times a week:
Server "Literature" [48] contains an annotated catalogue of the best literary resources of RUNET: electronic libraries, reviews of new books, literary contests etc. There are about 100 virtual full-text libraries in the Russian sector of the Internet. Here are two examples:
The Maxim Moshkov Library [49] is the best known Russian virtual library and opened in 1994. Readers replenishes it daily. Fiction, fantasy, policy, history, poetry, technical documentation, contemporary music, tourism etc. About 30 000 full texts of books on-line, monthly traffic 210Gb. The maximal nearness of Maxim Moshkov assembly of texts to the readers needs explains high popularity of the electronic library.
Moshkov has developed the simple and flexible approach to the copyright problem, he has declared, that he will delete from his site any materials on which the author or the publisher will have claims from library. After contacts between the electronic library and authors only two of 30 demanded to remove their books. Thus, Moshkov library became an important infrastructure project of the Russian Internet. It seems that there is a threat to the interests of publishers in such a popularity as it is possible to read the text of a novel from a computer screen. But in reality people often buy the books they like after reading on-line. No wonder, that in the future among the sources of financing of his electronic library Maxim Moshkov sees, besides grants and "personal funds of librarians ", advertising and sale of paper books.
The Public Internet Library [50] was created as an Electronic Library and offers: the electronic archives of Russian press beginning from 1990; the electronic versions of more than 600 Russian national newspapers and magazines including those from 70 Russian regions; the complete description of bibliographical sources in accordance with international standards; and comprehensive professional search-technologies. The Library also suggests packages of high-quality info-analytical materials and monitoring of Russian press on topics (part of them are also prepared in English). Registered as an non-profit autonomous public library, "Public Library (On-line)" is functioning on the basis of the Russian Federal Law "On Libraries", and respectively "ensures the right of its clients for information about the library's funds, for free use of materials from the library's archives, and for other custom-services including those provided on commercial basis". The Public Library is a full-member of "The Russian Library Association (RLA)" and "International Federation of Libraries' Association (IFLA)".
The Public Library Project was lunched on April 2000 to promote the rights of each individual for free access to information, for free cultural development, and for education. Its activity is aimed at the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and information among the people of Russia and other nations. The major goal of the Public Library is announced as the contribution to the development of a global community and to the strengthening a sense of community.
Since 1998 the annual international conference EVA Moscow has played an important role in the Russian "Culture X Technology" sector. Centre PIC is the main EVA Moscow organiser in co-operation with the State Tretyakov Gallery and VASARI Enterprises UK.
The themes of EVA Moscow are actually wider than electronic imaging and the visual arts and cover all aspects of new technologies in cultural heritage. Though EVA Moscow is mostly oriented to the heritage institutions it includes a strong R&D aspect as well. Moscow EVA has a strong international aspect and is the only conference in Russia where specialists from different sectors of the cultural area (museums, galleries, libraries, archives, non-movable cultural heritage institutions) gather to discuss common problems of new information and communication technologies implementation in cultural heritage area. The government, research and technological sectors are also involved. As a rule EVA Moscow attracts about 600 delegates, speakers and exhibitors from Russia, former Soviet republics and the New Independent States in helping 'Culture x Technology' across Russian, Eastern Europe and building international relations as well as from EU countries and the USA. The Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation - Moscow) helps to bring delegates and speakers from the Russian regions. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technologies of Russia support every EVA Moscow. As a special event the exhibition "Multimedia in Culture, Art and Education" is organised every year. CD-ROMs, Internet-sites, data-bases, software and hardware for cultural institutions, video-films on culture, art and education are presented at the exhibition. The traditional place of EVA Moscow is the State Tretyakov Gallery though some conference events are located at other places, including the State Darwin Museum. Working languages are Russian and English with simultaneous interpretation; Conference Proceedings (full texts) are published in English and Russian. All conference events, Proceedings etc. are free of charge for speakers and delegates and exhibition space and equipment is also free of charge for the exhibitors. An Announcement, Call for papers, Programme, a list of delegates and speakers etc. are published on the Internet [51]; on-line registration is organised; full text papers, illustrated exhibition catalogue and photo-album are also on the Internet. All Internet publications are in Russian and English. The Internet hosting of EVA Moscow is supplied by ARTINFO. Cultural visits to Moscow museums and libraries during the conference week are free.
Traditional topics of EVA Moscow are strategic issues; international co-operation; regional aspects; IST for museums, libraries, archives, non-movable heritage; new technologies and contemporary art; technological issues; standards and meta-data. EVA2001 Moscow brought several new topics, which highlighted special interests and new trends. The most interesting sessions were " Digital Access to Cultural Heritage: Audio and video archives and funds" and "Access to Digital Cultural and Social Heritage: Cultural Diversity and Dialogue". Contacts with educational institutions and pedagogic departments of museums enriched EVA Moscow with a section called "Information Technologies for Museum Pedagogic" and with a new form of conference activity: a game-contest for teenagers on Russian Art, which was based on creative computer approaches. The especially important regional aspect was underlined by a session "Presenting the Regions: Information Resources of Kuzbass" which brought to Moscow EVA a far-away coal region. EVA2001 Moscow Proceedings [51] were actively used to prepare this article.
The jubilee Fifth EVA2002 Moscow will be held December 2 -7 in the State Tretyakov Gallery with the theme "Information for all: Culture and Information Society Technologies". It is planned to organise a workshop "East Europe, Baltic Countries, Russia, NIS - perspectives of co-operation". EVA2002 Moscow is a good place for dissemination of EU IST policy and activities, IST projects and results, for finding Russian and NIS partners for future projects of FP6 and CULTIVATE Russia, led by the British Council.
At the beginning of the 1990's, Russia was well behind Europe and North America in the field of 'Culture x Technology' - by some estimates 5 - 6 years. This gap has since been closed substantially and this is exemplified by EVA Moscow and the major annual Libraries Conference in the Crimea (over 1,000 participants).
Russia's great cultural heritage and now very lively cultural scene allied with strong technological skills indicate that Russia will make continuing progress - ideally with strong international partnerships as already shown by Russian current participation in the CULTIVATE Russia, EVA Networking and MUVII projects. In July 2002 two more EU projects with Russian participation starts, that is E-Culture Net and PULMAN XT. It is hoped that Russia will play a key role in the Sixth Framework Programme including working with EU partners to help other countries in the Newly Independent States e.g. Ukraine and new Central Asia States to become very involved in European-wide and international work in The Information Society and Technology in Culture.
Nadezhda V Brakker
The Centre for Informatization in the Sphere of Culture (Centre
PIC)
The 5th Magistralnaja ul, 5,
Moscow 123007,
Russia
URL: <http://www.evarussia.ru/>
Email: lku@artinfo.ru
Nadezhda Brakker, the main specialist of Centre PIC, graduated from the State Moscow University, Department of Structural and Applied Linguistics with post-graduate at the All-union Institute of Science and Technical Information. Nadezhda has worked in the area of information technologies in museums for 20 years, takes an active part in all the projects of Centre PIC and is responsible for research and international projects. Her interests and studies are concentrated on Internet resources in the cultural area, integration of regional information resources based on standards and meta-data, net knowledge bases and distance learning. Nadezhda was a speaker at EVA'96 London, EVA'97 Brussels, EVA'98 Cambridge, EVA'99 Florence, EVA2000 Edinburg, EVA2000 Gifu, EVA2001 Florence, Sphere (Helsinki 2001), e-MAL (Riga 2002) and is the secretary of the Organisation Committee of EVA'98 and EVA'99 Moscow and the Head of the Programme Committee of EVA2000, EVA2001 Moscow - the leading international event in Russia and East Europe. Nadezhda took the course Digital Cultural Heritage II at the Amsterdam-Maastricht Summer University in 2000. She is involved in European projects EVA Networking (EVAN), Cultivate-Russia, Multi-User Virtual Interactive Interface (MUVII).
Leonid A Kujbyshev
The Centre for Informatization in the Sphere of Culture (Centre
PIC)
The 5th Magistralnaja ul, 5,
Moscow 123007,
Russia
URL: <http://www.evarussia.ru/>
Email: lku@artinfo.ru
Leonid Kujbyshev, the chief of the Centre of Multimedia Technologies of Centre PIC, graduated from the Moscow Institute of Radio-electronics and worked on design, development and installation of automated documentation systems in the tourist business. From 1989 he was the chief of the software department of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR and since 1992, is a vice-director of Centre PIC. From 1994 he was the chief of the Centre of multimedia technologies and co-ordinates all multimedia projects of Centre PIC. Leonid is a member of the Russian branch of ICOMOS. He is one of the founders of the Union of multimedia publishers and is now interested mainly in the problems of "piracy", intellectual property and legislation in the sphere of multimedia. Leonid Kujbyshev studies and analyses Russian policy in Culture and Technologies, Russian Multimedia industry and Russian Internet resources on culture and art. Leonid was a speaker at EVA'96 London, EVA'97 Brussels, EVA'99 Florence, EVA2000 Edinburgh, EVA2000 Gifu, EVA2001 Berlin and the head of Organisation Committee of EVA'98, EVA'99, EVA2000, EVA2001 Moscow - the leading international event in Russia and East Europe. Involved in European projects EVAN, Cultivate-Russia, Multi-User Virtual Interaction Interface (MUVII).
The Centre for Informatization in the Sphere of Culture of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (Centre PIC) [52] was organised in 1992 from personnel of the computer centre of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR, after the USSR was divided into independent states, to investigate new information technologies and applications in the cultural area. Centre PIC is a state research and design body subordinate to the Ministry of Culture of Russia and works under contracts with the Ministry of Culture of Russia, with the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology of Russia and with Russian museums and other cultural institutions. In 1995 the Ministry of Culture of Russia organised the Centre of Multimedia Technologies (as a subsidiary of Centre PIC) to co-ordinate the efforts of different bodies connected with multimedia publishing and distribution in culture and art. The Centre's services include evaluation of proposed projects and works-in-process. Centre PIC monitors and analyses new information and communication technologies in culture and art (in Russia and internationally) and presents annuals reports on the topic.
Centre PIC participates in the EU projects EVA Networking (EVAN), Cultivate-Russia, Multi-User Virtual Interaction Interface (MUVII).
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For citation purposes:
Brakker,N. and Kujbyshev,L. "The Information Society and Technology in Russia", Cultivate Interactive, issue
8, 15 November 2002
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue8/istrussia/>
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