Problems of Archive Volunteerism in Russia and Development Prospects

The author identifies the specifics of archive volunteerism in the Russian Federation. They reveal and explain including the existing problems in relations between archives and volunteers have been caused by both the lack of a regulatory framework for archive volunteerism and the specifics of the work of archive institutions; the article outlines possible ways to solve them. The author analyzes the current state of archive volunteerism in the Russian Federation based on the results of a survey of federal and state archives of the Russian Federation subjects, municipal archives, as well as the regulatory legal framework for this area of volunteerism. They give an analysis of the attitude of archives at three levels to the use of volunteer labor in the work of archival institutions. They identified the main areas of activity of archival institutions, which already involve volunteers, and the number of volunteers that archives need to work offline and then online using crowdsourcing IT platforms. The author explains why these particular areas of activity require the involvement of volunteers. There are considered reasons hindering the development of archive volunteerism and they outlined the ways to solve a number of identified problems and possible prospects for interaction between archives and volunteers. The author comes to the conclusion that the implementation of interrelated activities within the framework of a single concept for maintaining archive volunteerism will help bring this area of volunteerism to a level where it can provide real assistance to archives and become attractive to volunteers.