Abstracts:

The regional department of the Association of Russia’s museums“Museums of the Lower Oka Region” (MLO) was founded in 1999. The department consolidates a dozen and ahalf (лучше включить точное число) town museums of Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir and Ryazan regions.

The important feature of “MLO” is its devotion not to the administrative region but to the cultural sphere, including neighboring territories, which havetraditional historical, cultural and economic connections; and its program interest to the small museums.

The means to overcome the gap between the central organization andperiphery are Internet-technologies.

In the year of “LOM” creation only Murom Historicaland Art Museum (www.museum.murom) and Sarov History and Economy Museum (http://www. vniief.ru/culture/museum) were represented in Internet.

Both representations still exist but only the site of Murom museum can be considered a self-dependent unit, where one canfind a constantly renewed news page, a bill, various sections of Murom history; recently a Forum and a Guest Book wereinitiated; while Sarov museum is represented only by once created web site.

“LOM” was initially aimed at the use of informationtechnologies for the encouragement of regional integrity, under support of Soros Fund the web site “Oklandia” (http://www.oklandia.murom.ru) was created in 1999.

The necessity of creation of the integral information system for theLower Oka Museums came to the agenda. The project “Creation of Internet Cooperation on the Basis of the Network of Nizhny Novgorod Regional Museums” (InternetCooperation of Lower Oka Moseums) was supported on the fair of social and cultural projects “Saratov2001” of the Volga federal area. The project solves the problems of enstrangement of technologically educated layers of society,first of all the youth, from the values of regional cultural heritage.

Since 2002 we actively initiate the site www.oklandia.murom.ru making it interactive: Forum and Internet conference are started, there’s a possibility to use the chat of the portal museum.ru; in August 2002 the summary database over the collections of themuseums - members of the Cooperation was founded on the site, knowing the address of the corresponding site page one can replenish the database.

Nowadays “Oklandia” is a constantly developing web resource, using the technologies of Radio-Ethernet. Here one can get fresh information onthe compatible and independent activities of the museums - members of “LOM”, on the towns of the LowerOka, on the tourist potential of the region, etc.

The problem aroused in the course of the project development is the lackof well-trained specialists.

The subsequent perspectives are the development of the partnership withother regions, the development of the children branch (electronical textbook “History of Murom and Murom Territory from Ancient Times till XXI Century”, the game - “Routes of War andPeace”).