PUBLIC VIRTUAL PRESENTATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL MATERIALS: THE NOTES FROM RUSSIA

Abstract

The history of museum informatics in Russian Federation can be divided in stages according to the use of various computer technologies. At the same time nobody takes in account information technologies. First of all the museum cataloguing had aim to put information in order and make it accessible. Public presentation of museum collections and results of scientific research required new technologies different from databases. The uptoday solutions are mostly based on web-technologies. Information goes to user. According to the Gartner Hype Cycle methodology, there are five key phases in every information technology’s life cycle. First, there are one to two years of announcement, followed by testing and risk evaluation. Then, there are two to three years for inflated expectations linked to the implementation and usage of the technology to peak. Finally, this is followed by a recession and a negative slope. It is curious but just the archaeological collections always was in focus of case studies for the museum informatics. They started by scientific descriptions for the special aims of archaeological research using numerical methods. Then a database for the museum catalogue was developed, and finally we continue to look for the modern techniques for the virtual reconstructions and public presentation of our collections to wide public. Sometimes the necessity to avoid expensive hardware results in the good solutions and possibility to find balance between computer and information technologies. Now, for us the problem consists in usability of the information. Our visitors are in need of data and museum specialists are not ready to apply modern techniques for their purposes.