Abstracts:

More than 200 organization in Russia successfully introduce modern information technologies and form databases on the objects of cultural heritage. The leading part in the process of databases forming take museums - more of 90 museums installed the information system “KAMIS” (development and support by “Alt-Soft”, Saint-Petersburg, Russia), 70 museums about use the system “AIS-Museum” (development and support by Information Center of Russian Ministry of Culture). The Regional Departments of Monuments Defence, the special organizations creating inventories of monuments and the state archives actively use the information systems. Unfortunately, in Russia there is not official standard on cultural objects electronic description. The organizations in the sphere of culture use databases for their own needs – for documentation, lists and reports. However, some museums, Regional Departments of Monuments Defence and archives began announce the electronic catalogues at the Internet-sites taking in account the social interest to information on the saved national cultural heritage.
Today the development of the information technologies allows to propose to a librarian user not only traditional, but electronic catalogues. The progress does not stay at one place – the new technologies appears in libraries – reader get electronic image instead of real book.
CIMI – Computer Interchange of Museum Information consortium – the uncommercial initiative for the communicative standards development promotes the museum information conservation in digital form and create the potential for the data exchange. The consortium CIMI has realized the pilot project Cultural Heritage Information Online (CHIO), which shows the possibility of information resource preparation and the realization of the based on standards search on cultural heritage.
The project CHIO has tested and demonstrated the use of two international standards – Standardized General Mark-up Language (SGML) and Z.39.50, as a technology of the multimedia information resources on cultural heritage integration and search technology in digital nets creation. CHIO demonstrated the solution for the realization of the on-line search of various archival resources, texts and images stored in independent software and hardware platforms, using the International standard of information search and access ANSI Z39.50 (ISO 10162/63). Using the standard Z.39.50, CHIO demonstrated the search and access to the information in many local systems. Z39.50 was developed by the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), as a basic standard of the system information interchange of the Coalition. The net information association formed proposals of adaptation of the CIMI and Z.39.50.
More than 200 russian libraries made electronic bibliographic catalogues using the international standard MARC (UNIMARC, RUSMARC). In 13 regions of Russia librarian consortiums are created – the information associations of the regional libraries. The region librarian consortium provide the user access to the electronic catalogues of all libraries included in this consortium. These 13 librarian consortiums have created the Association of librarian consortiums ARBICON (the Association of the Russian Librarian Consortiums). This association allows to readers the access both to information resources of the region libraries and the electronic catalogues of 200 russian libraries from 13 regions! The processing centers of the consortiums “contact” using the international communication standard of data exchange Z 39.50.
Since 2002 “Alt-Soft” has started the investigation of the possibilities of the standards CIMI and Z.39.50 for their utilization in the field of museums and archives activity in Russia. The problem was formulated as the special software for interface of the separate blocks in different local systems (“data provider”). The Museum in Rybinsk, the Department on monuments conservation in Pskov and the St.-Petersburg archive of cinema-, photo- and phono-documents took part in the experiment.
ADIT has proposed to create non commercial information consortium for the russian organization of culture “RUSART” (Russian Space of Art Resources Technologies), which will infuse to the Association of the librarian consortiums ARBICON, and then in russian and world interlibrarian information space.