Virtual archives of Russia: history and development prospects

The article discusses the main trends in the development of systematized repositories of human knowledge. From antiquity to the present day, both information carriers and ideological foundations associated with the tasks assigned to such storages have changed. Of course, the preservation of historical memory has always remained an unchanged guideline for the creators of archives and libraries. But the very ideas about the future, assumed by various projects of systematization of knowledge, were very different depending on the epoch. Of particular interest from this point of view is the concept of the archive put forward by N. Fedorov as part of his doctrine of mankind role in the universe. The article emphasizes that archives and libraries were called upon in different ways to perform a social function inseparable from their very existence. The prospects for the development of modern archives are directly connected with the processes of digitalization. Both document processing technologies and the way researchers communicate with the archive are being improved. The possibilities of scientific analysis of archival data are significantly increased. Currently, the objects of informatization of the archive should include: its acquisition and examination of the value of documents; acquisition, storage and search of documents on machine-readable information carriers; creation of an insurance fund and a fund for the use of documents. Obviously, the prospects for the development of archives in our country are closely related to their digitalization and, therefore, accessibility for an increasingly wide range of researchers. In turn, this circumstance should have a positive effect on the overall course of interdisciplinary research. It can be predicted that the change in the form of archival materials will serve as one of the factors in the transformation of the structure of scientific knowledge.