ABSTRACT
Increased directory-level “intellectual access” to now revolutionized Russian archives has come to the Internet in Moscow with a newly signed (2013) Agreement between the International Institute of Social History (Iish) and the Russian Presidential Academy for the National Economy and Public Administration (Ranepa; or in Russian – Rankhigs). 1 As the prime comprehensive archival directory and reference bibliography, Abb grew out of the bilingual database that during the 1990s produced Russian and English printed directories of Russian archives, in close collaboration with the Federal Archival Agency of Russia (Rosarkhiv). 2 After publication of the expanded English edition of Archives in Russia in 2000, however, Rosarkhiv declined further collaboration in the expansion of the bilingual Internet version iish was proposing. Jaap Kloosterman, as iish director was not prepared to let ArcheoBiblioBase (Abb) expire. Already since 1997 iish hosted and developed an English Internet version of Abb on the Institute website (https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://www.iisg.nl/abb/">https://www.iisg.nl/abb/), which now covers close to 600 Russian archives and manuscript repositories with links to their reference facilities. Following the Dutch-Russian 2013 cooperative Agreement, Ranepa launched an Abb mirror website in February 2014 at https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="https://abb.ranepa.ru/">https://abb.ranepa.ru/, while planning continues for further updating and eventual revival of a bilingual version.
