Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation of St. Petersburg, One of the Largest Specialized Centers for Storage and Usage of Documents on National History of Science and Technology: 1972–2022
Authors:   Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Aganina S. A. , Churina L. S. ,   Central State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation of St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Rupasov A. I. ,   St Petersburg Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Korshunov E. L. ,   Research Institute (of Military History) of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
Published: September 2022

The article deals with preservation of documentary sources on history of technology, research, and development of technical projects, thus addressing copyright compliance and thereto pertaining wide availability of scientific achievement and also identifying such materials. The process of creating repositories of such materials in the USSR and their functioning in the Russian Federation has been long. As Leningrad/St Petersburg with its hundreds of research institutes, design bureaus, etc. was one of the centers of science, technology, and engineering (and remains so), the archive’s creation was preceded by a lengthy process of the so called “passportization,” that is, data sheet production for scientific and technical documentation, deposited in the course of city organizations’ work. To accelerate this process, in 1967, a special group was created for scientific and technical documentation under the Archival Department of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council. The “passportization” identified over 300 development organizations, storing about 27 million items of scientific and technical documentation. In 1967 proposal about creation of the State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation in Leningrad was made to the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council and the Chief Archival Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, but nearly five years had passed before the Leningrad State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation was created by order of the Leningrad City Executive Committee no. 75-r of January 19, 1972 to preserve the most valuable scientific and technical documentation of Leningrad project and design organizations and research institutes. During the 1970s, a real team of like-minded archivists was put together and the Archive’s structure was formed, remaining to this day with some minor modifications. The archive staff gained experience of processing scientific and technical documentation and its accounting during internships in departmental technical archives; supervised by chief engineers, chief designers, architects, and leading specialists of developer organizations, they studied the organizations’ structure and main activities: projects, project composition, scientific reports, theses, design and marking of technical documentation, accounting system, etc. At present, the archive holds 463,871 items in 480 fonds of organizations, fonds of personal provenance, and other archival collections.