Beginning May 1996 tourists from all over the world could visit the Russian
National Museum of Ethnography 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via museum's
new World Wide Web Home Page. The Ethnographic Museum's Home Page
was developed jointly by Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia,  Oakland University
in Rochester, Michigan, USA and Neva-Hudson, Inc., an international consulting
firm.

Ivan Bakhurin, vice-president of Neva-Hudson, Inc., come up with the idea while
scanning pictures in a US library for a Japanese friend. He explained his
concept to Dr. Natalia Kalasnikova, Scientific Director  of the Rus
sian National Museum of Ethnography and to Dr. Nathan Longan of Oakland
University and find their strong support. Dr. Longan, a professor of Russian
Studies at Oakland University, approached Dr. Downing, the Dean of Arts
and Science with Mr. Bakhurin's proposal.

Museum specialists carefully selected the images of the catalogues from museum
library. Some of those catalogues exist just in a single copy, so now after
being scanned and placed at the WWW those images could be accessed
 by the researches, museum people from all over the world and any art admirer
who could use the computer network.

Two University's interns begun collecting and scanning photographs from
catalogues last fall in cooperation with museum personnel.  The University paid
technicians to set up the Home Page, while Neva-Hudson, donated organ
izational costs and labor.  Oakland also donated computer space and place the
Home Page at the University computer.

The initial phase of the project was completed in December 1995, when the first
material was brought to St. Petersburg and  presented to the group of museum
officers and experts at the American Center, Cultural Department
 of the US Consulate General.  Mr. Leonid Romankov,  Chair of the St.
Petersburg City Assembly's Education and Cultural committee, said such projects
provide "global possibilities for the city's museum's" since the Intern
et is so basic to the cultural development of the world.

We have an address: http://www.acs.oakland.edu/cas/emuseum/index.htm. If you
are using Netscape you can type that into the address line and it will take you
to the museum logo, a red neon sign with a blue "enter" button b
elow. At present most of us will have to scroll our screens to get to the
"enter" button.  Clicking on the enter button takes you to the first page of
the Ethnographic Museum On-line.  This is a very snazzy piece of compu
ter design produced by our "electronic curator" Eric Strub.  The centerpiece is
a Russian flag with a superimposed two-headed imperial eagle.

The main museum images will be accessible by clicking on the title of the
museum or on the flag.  Though many images are already scanned into computer
format, and rough "construction" was well enough in place to put a dra
ft version on CD for the December viewing in St. Petersburg, a series of
technical problems has meant that the images themselves are still not up. And
yet, technical problems aside, we are on the verge of putting at least the
exhibit of the Imperial Treasures on-line. The Jewish Collection will be next.
One important omission:  in order to view the first images from the museum you
need to be running Netscape 2.0. Earlier versions of Netscape can't deal with
frames, and this program is full of  very nice framing of everything from text
to photos.  While the museum is not bugless (and thus we aren't advertising the
address too broadly) please visit.

The Home Page offers the "tour" through the museum, when you are clicking  at
the certain rooms are capable to come through the major collections, assigned
to the specific rooms, where the actual collections are displayed. We are
planning to present the information on every exhibition, which could be
arranged by the Russian National Museum of Ethnography. Also we are working on
the program offering the possibility for the researches from
all over the world to come to St. Petersburg for the scientific work with the
Museum materials.

At present  we are working on a program for setting the Museum Information
Center. This Center will serve as a training facility for the museum people
from all over the C.I.S. in how to prepare their own Home Pages.

All parties, involved in the initial phase of this exiting project keep working
to further develop the Home Page, and we already have a list of potential US
institutions willing to assist in compiling information on the international
art world.  In addition to the mere necessity for better access in order to
create a well established art market, St. Petersburg is a potential host for
the 2004 Olympics.  This requires the city's ability to provide information on
all spheres of the city's life.  Most importantly, in depth information on the
arts must be provided, as St. Petersburg is one of the world's leading art
centers.

If anyone will have some questions or will need any additional information,
please contact:
Dr. Longan at "[log in to unmask]",
Arabella Stewart, Project Manager at "[log in to unmask]"
Ivan Bakhurin at "[log in to unmask]"