OBJECTIVE

The objective of this document is to outline a plan of action for cataloguing and microfilming the museum archival materials that are presently unsorted and uncatalogued. The plan describes the present state of the Museum and its archival materials, outlines plans of action, and addresses the funding requirements to execute these planned actions.

DETAILS OF THE PLAN

BACKGROUND

The Museum of Russian Culture has existed at the Russian Center in San Francisco since 1948 and has continued to exist without interruptions to this day. The Museum is an independent tax exempt non-profit organization with its own charter and by-laws, but it is totally dependent on the Russian Center for the space it occupies in the Russian Center building. The Museum holdings consist of exposition materials such as paintings, photographs, medals, flags, maps, and other objects. These are exhibited in the Museum exhibit hall. In addition there are books, magazines, and newspapers that are presently stored in the attic and are not easily accessible because of restrictions of the storage space. There is also a large collection of archival materials that consists of private papers, speeches, letters, and photographs donated to the Museum by individuals and organizations. Parts of this archival material have been sorted, listed, cataloged and microfilmed. These materials are accessible to the Museum staff and to the visiting public.

University of California at Berkeley performed sorting and microfilming of some books and periodicals in the 1970s. There were 488 books and 218 serial titles in this set. The original materials and catalog listings were returned to the Museum and the microfilms were retained by the University.

In the 1999 to 2001 time period some archival materials were sorted, cataloged, and microfilmed by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The original material and one copy of microfilm (positive and negative) were returned to the Museum. One microfilm copy was retained by the Hoover Institute, and one microfilm copy was given by Hoover Institute to the Government Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF) with Museum consent.

At present there are approximately 1,400 boxes of unsorted and uncataloged material at the Museum. The materials are not accessible to either visitors or to the Museum staff. Our goal is to make these materials accessible to the Museum visitors and to the public at large.

After the Loma Prieta earthquake the city of San Francisco mandated that unreinforced masonry buildings do seismic upgrading or close. In 1995 Russian Center started the required seismic work and also reconfigured the space used by the Museum. Museum books and magazines were rapidly packed in storage boxes and stored in the attic above the main Russian Center reception hall. They became inaccessible to either Museum staff or to the visiting public. In 2004 the Museum governing body decided to donate some of these items to GARF to save them from unsatisfactory storage environment. In total 651 boxes were shipped to GARF.

The shipment to GARF created a wrong impression in the community about what the Museum was doing but also had a positive impact because it forced all of us to think about the value to the community of having a Museum of Russian Culture. Russian Center organized an Advisory Committee described in a later section of this plan. The Russian Center has pledged to support and expand the Museum at the Russian Center. The Russian Center along with the advisory committee of community organizations has pledged to try to raise sufficient monies to fund this plan.

VALUE

The materials stored at the Museum are valuable to those who are interested in the origin of Russian immigrants and their descendants living outside of Russia. Museum materials are mainly concerned with the Russian immigrants who left Russia during the Russian revolution in 1917, and with Russian immigrants who left Russia during World War II. The Museum has collected materials not only in the San Francisco Bay Area but had received donations from Russian immigrants and organizations throughout the world. The Museum materials, therefore, must be considered of interest to individuals throughout the world.

Following the collapse of communism in Russia in the 1980s and after the difficult transition period in the 1990s, conditions in Russian have stabilized and life started to return to normal. Russians became interested in the Russian immigrants living abroad. They are interested to learn where they immigrated to, where they lived, and where they finally settled. They are often surprised that many have retained their Russian language, and the Orthodox Religion. The Museum staff feels strongly that the present day Russians in Russia can benefit from the writings of the Russian émigré leaders about importance and preservation of Russian culture. Similarly they can benefit from priest and monk sermons recorded in our émigré magazines and newspapers about the importance of preserving the Russian love of Christ, Orthodox customs and Orthodox traditions. These are the reasons the Museum management is attempting to make our materials available and accessible not only to those who live in the Bay Area but to all interested in the rest of the world and particularly in Russia. The proposed plan of action by the Museum is designed to achieve these goals.

CURRENT STATUS

The status of the Museum can be summarized as follows:

1. The main Museum exhibit hall is a spacious room on the 3rd floor with many exhibits including medals, old Russian flags, a model of Fort Ross Chapel with pictures of the fort, a display of TV inventor Vladimir Zworykin, the original voice tape recorder from A. M. Poniatoff’s (founder of AMPEX corporation) home, a display of professor V. N. Ipatieff the inventor of high octane gasoline, and many others. In addition there are letters, papers, and photographs of the last tsars of pre-revolutionary Russia. These exhibits are semi-permanent but can be modified to display new materials. These exhibits will not be impacted by the proposed plans.
2. The museum library is presently in non operational state since it is stored in boxes in the attic above the Russian Center’s main reception hall and are not easily accessible. This plan does not address this except that if more space is provided by the Russian Center the Museum will be able to display these books and magazines.
3. The archival materials can be divided into two parts. The materials that have been cataloged by Hoover/Stanford University and the materials that have not yet been cataloged. Each is described below.
4. The original microfilmed materials are stored in grey archival boxes that are located on metal book shelves on the 4th floor. These materials are accessible to library’s staff and to visitors of the Museum. These materials are also stored in the Museum on microfilm in positive and negative form. The Museum presently does not possess a microfilm reader but the Museum is planning to convert these microfilms to a digital format and to place them on the Internet server. This will allow all interested to view it via Internet from anywhere in the world. These material holdings will not be affected by the proposed plan of action.
5. The last part of the Museum archival holdings consists of materials that have not yet been cataloged and are not accessible to either the Museum staff or to Museum visitors. Some of the materials are stored in grey archival boxes and some are stored in large (12 x 16 x 10 inch) filing cabinet style boxes. There are about 1,400 boxes in this set. It is estimated by the Museum staff that about 600 of these boxes contain worthwhile and relevant materials that are worthy of microfilming. These boxes are stored either on metallic shelves on the 4th floor or in the attic above the main Russian Center’s exhibit hall. These materials are the subject of this plan of action.

WORK PLAN

The work plan to perform the required tasks is described in this section. There are about 600 boxes of archival materials that need to be sorted, catalogued, and microfilmed. These materials will be reviewed by the academic committee (described below) and then selected from a total of 1400 boxes. The selection will be made based on value and relevance of these items.

Cataloging

Since the estimated size of the material consists of some 600 boxes, the Museum plans to divide the material into 6 segments and take six years to complete this project. The academic committee will help dividing the material into the six segments. To perform this work the Museum plans to solicit help from GARF. One or two members of GARF staff will travel to San Francisco from Moscow and spend several weeks in reviewing, sorting, and cataloging producing lists of the sorted material. Members of the Museum will assist the GARF specialists with this work. Some of the materials are too fragile or too valuable for microfilming by a vendor and these will be scanned at the Museum. The control of the archival materials and access to the archives in general will be the responsibility of the Museum’s staff. Upon completion of this work the material will be ready for microfilming.

Microfilming

The plan for performing microfilming will consist of two options A and B.

Option “A” is to perform microfilming locally in the Bay Area and to pay for this out of the funds collected by and from the local Russian community. For each segment (each year) microfilming will begin after cataloging segment is finished. The microfilming will create two copies of each positive and negative. One positive and negative microfilm set will be given to GARF and one positive and negative microfilm set will remain at the Museum. The original materials will also remain at the Museum.
Option “B” will be executed if the Russian community is unable to raise the required capital for microfilming. In this case the original material and copies of catalogs will be sent to GARF for microfilming. GARF will perform the microfilming in Russia and send one set of microfilms (positive and negative) to the Museum. The original materials will remain with GARF.

This sequence will continue for six years until all of the work of this project is finished. Each year after cataloging phase is completed, either option “A” or option “B” will be executed depending on the availability of funds. The first sequence will be executed in 2009, and the sixth sequence will be executed in 2014.

RUSSIAN CENTER AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORT

The Russian Center Board has expressed its desire to help the Museum and raise funds for this plan. Russian Center also organized a committee of Russian Community organizations to solicit their moral and financial support. A special advisory committee was formed and is chaired by the president of the Russian Center. This committee consists of representatives from the following organizations:

1. Russian Center
2. Congress of Russian Americans
3. St. John Volunteers
4. St. John Kronschdtat Convalescent Center
5. Organization of Support of Russian Children
6. Kulaieff Educational Fund
7. Russian Home of Saint Vladimir
8. Society of Russian Veterans & former Cadets
9. Cossacks Union
10. RACS
11. Russian Life Newspaper
12. St. George Pathfinders
13. Russian Children Welfare Society
14. League of Russian Women
15. Holy Virgin Cathedral
16. Christ the Savior Church

This advisory committee with the support of the representing organizations will assume the task of raising the required funds for this plan.

FUTURE PLANS

These plans are the Museum’s plans at large, outside of the efforts covered in this plan but are related to it. This planned work will be performed in parallel with the work described in the Business Plan and will supplement it.

The main goal of this effort is to convert the existing Museum’s microfilms to a digital format and to place it in the World Wide Internet domain. Initial steps in this direction have already been taken by the Museum. The Museum invites all interested to visit the Museum Website museumofrussianculturesf.com. Select the archive section and then log into dr.bmiimaging.com and log in using user name zimal@aol.com and use password museum1. Please do not change this password! Select dataset “the museum of Russian culture” and view the DAVID CHUBOV PAPERS archival sample.

This sample hosting on Internet is not a final product since it is hosted on a computer that belongs to the company that digitized these microfilm reels. There will be another digitization test soon that will allow to host this data on the Museum’s owned server to gain independence from the vendor. The plan is to digitize all of the microfilm reels that were cataloged by the Hoover Institution. This planned effort is not covered by the proposed effort and will be financed by the Museum.

After all of the existing microfilm reels are converted to Internet format, the Museum has long range plans to also convert all of the microfilms created by this proposed effort. These long range plans are the Museum’s vision into the future and are dependent on obtaining future funding.

In summary, the future of the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco looks bright. The Museum intends to exist as long as the Russian Center exists in its preset form. The Museum’s archival materials will eventually be available to all who have access to a computer.

FUNDING DETAILS

This section provides an estimate of the cost of executing the first segment of cataloguing and digitization as described in this document. It is expected that a new estimate will be made for the subsequent segments based on the actual cost of each previous segment.

The following assumptions are being made based on our prior experience in cataloguing Museum documents that was sponsored by Hoover Institution.

1. There are about 1000 pages to be microfilmed in each archival box.
2. The cost of microfilming is going to be $0.40 per page.

Based on these assumptions the costs of this first segment will be as follows:

1. Ninety (90) archival boxes will be microfilmed for a vendor cost of $36,000.
2. One Museum part-time employee will have to be hired to help GARF specialists at a cost of $28,000.
3. One part-time person will have to be hired to help with movement of boxes and other chores at a cost of $9,000.
4. Scanning of the most valuable pages will cost $6,000.
5. Materials will cost $7,000.
6. Miscellaneous expenses (including purchase of a large size and high quality scanner) are estimated at $9,000.

The total cost of the first segment is $95,000.00.

ACADEMIC COMMITTEE

An academic committee has been formed to support the work described in this paper. The purpose of this committee is to guide the Museum staff with the review of archival materials that are relevant to the museum and are worthy of microfilming. This is the second such committee organized by the Museum. The first committee was formed in 1997 for the purposes of guiding the microfilming work sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

This second committee will consist of the following members.

1. Mrs. Helena Danielson, Ph.D. Chairperson. She was the Director of Libraries and Archives at Hoover Institution and is now retired.
2. Mr. Allan Urbanic, Ph.D. Member. He is the Librarian for Slavic and East European Collections at University of California at Berkeley University.
3. Mrs. Karen Roondesvedt, Ph.D. Member. She is the curator for Slavic and East European Collections at Stanford University.
4. Mr. Voitchik Zalevski, Ph. D. Member. He was the Curator for Slavic and East European Collections at Stanford University and is now retired.
5. Mr. Georgy Tarala, Member. He is the Vice President and chief Archivist at the Museum of Russian Culture.
6. Mr. Nicholas Koretsky, Member. He is the President of the Museum of Russian Culture.