Ukrainian National Museum embarks on ambitious Cataloguing Project (05/09/99)

Ukrainian National Museum embarks on ambitious Cataloguing Project

by Orest A. Hrynewych

CHICAGO - In 1952, Olexa Hankewych, Dr. Myroslaw Simenowych, Julian Kamenetsky and Orest Horodysky funded the Ukrainian National Museum (UNM) here in order to preserve artifacts, books, periodicals, immigration records and other evidence of the Ukrainian culture brought to America by the three major waves of immigration from Ukraine.

Located in a remodeled church rectory in the heart of Ukrainian Village at 721 N. Oakley Blvd., the UNM has embarked on an ambitious program to develop a computerized database, titled the Cataloguing Project, for its museum collection, library, and archive. The Cataloguing Project will make the collections at the 10,000 square-foot UNM a valuable resource for all friends of the Ukrainian culture, academic researchers and the general public.

The UNM currently contains a collection of over 1,140 artifacts, including traditional folk art, agricultural tools, musical instruments, trophies and miscellaneous items that are unique or of exceptional value. The museum library has over 17,000 titles in both English and Ukrainian, including rare books, author-autographed editions, monographs of émigré communities, contemporary editions and, most important, over 600 periodicals and newspapers. Some of these are quite rare and exist only in a few archives and museums in Canada or the United States.

The museum also includes extensive archives of materials about Ukrainian communities, particularly in Chicago. This very valuable collection contains documents on Ukrainian performance groups, national youth organizations, veterans' and fraternal organizations, local church archives, 1933 Chicago World's Fair memorabilia, personal manuscripts of civic leaders and a large collection of photographs.

Ukraine's independence in 1991 forced the UNM to go through an internal reassessment and re-evaluation of its missions, objectives and goals. The board of directors concluded that preservation of Ukrainian culture and historical artifacts can best be achieved by the new Ukrainian state. The UNM's primary objective is to preserve rare periodicals and documents of the history of the Ukrainian immigration and Ukrainian American life, especially in Chicago. Therefore, the UNM must become more accessible to researchers, immigrants and their descendants, and the general public. The current popularity of ethnic studies and people's search for their ancestors make the computerized database of the UNM's collections a critical element in the museum's development and growth.

The UNM is very fortunate to have received a grant of $30,000 from the Heritage Foundation, a Chicago-based foundation headed by Dr. Julian Kulas and sponsored by the 1st Federal Savings Bank. This most generous gift has allowed the UNM to initiate this important work of developing the computerized database, the Cataloguing Project.

Several contracts were made with the Ukrainian Museum Archive in Cleveland (UMA) that has already initiated an extensive cataloguing project of its own periodicals and books. Andrew Fedynsky, director of the UMA, and Ihor Kowalysko, coordinator of the Cleveland Museum cataloguing project provided guidance and encouragement for the UNM project. After several months of discussion and meetings, the UNM and the UMA agreed to work together on the following tasks:

jointly cataloguing the museums' periodicals and books;
electronically linking (via the Internet) the two data systems with subsequent links to other institutions in the United States, Canada, Ukraine and other parts of the world;
evaluating important items and digitizing those that merit duplication;
cooperating with the U.S.-Ukraine Commission on the Preservation of Cultural Heritage on the development of an inventory and guidebook of important Ukrainian sites located in the United States;
including similar "Museum-Archive" type institutions into the project.

A team from the UNM has met professional staff archivists at Chicago's Newberry Research Library where methods for conservation and management of old materials were explained. A second UNM team met with the professional staff of the Chicago Public Library and with Kalyna Drohomyrecky, where appropriate data formatting and data display screens were covered. The Chicago Public Library representatives provided information on what methods and procedures would be most valuable given the nature of the task. They recommended that the Library of Congress transliteration system be used and offered to provide assistance should help be needed to catalogue books and periodicals in accordance with the Library of Congress classification system.

To facilitate inputting large amounts of data, the museum contracted with Ukomp Inc. to install and maintain a four-station local area network (LAN), as well as develop several databases.

A new computer and other equipment were purchased to allow the museum to do all digitizing, input and storage on-site. The network was installed in January and data entry has started. All data will be stored in MS Access which will make data retrieval extremely user-friendly. The database will be available in both English and Ukrainian; this will allow researchers in many countries to share information. Periodicals will be scanned and digitized, and will be available for on-line viewing to preserve the originals. Files and images will be stored on CD-ROMs; this will be the permanent record that can be easily used for research. New power cables and dedicated telephone lines were installed in order to provide the necessary reliability and robust system support for a project of this type.

The UNM has also recently updated and expanded its website (http://www.ukrntlmuseum.org/) to prepare it for the inclusion of the new databases. When data entry is complete, it will become available to anyone in the world with Internet access.

Currently the most pressing need is to enlist members of the Ukrainian community, library science students, retired librarians, and members of the public who would like to assist the UNM in supporting the cataloguing project. Any person interested in volunteering to assist in data entry, translation, and organization of the various periodicals and books should call Myroslava Batorfalvy at (312) 421-8020 or (773) 384-0650 during the day or, access UNM at http://www.ukrntlmuseum.org/

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