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]"