Community archives in the Manuscript Department of the National Library of Russia

Purpose This paper aims to characterize community archives in the common array of the manuscript collection of the National Library of Russia (NLR). The purpose of the paper is to identify the features of organization of the archival system of Russia and the place of community archives in it. The authors intend to characterize the features of origin, history of existence and preservation of archives of public organizations in Russia on the example of the archives of Russian societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; to spread knowledge about historical communities of Russia and their archival heritage and to discuss the value of community archives and their information potential. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on the traditional methodology of the academic archival studies. At the same time interdisciplinary approach plays a great role in the field of study of community archives. The findings of the study were obtained as a result of the application of methods of historical research and special historical disciplines: archival heuristics, archive studies, source studies and archeography. The data were complemented by documentary analysis, including materials of nine archives, documents concerning acquisition and storage of these archives. Findings As a result of the study of different community archives in the Manuscript Department of the NLR the authors came to the conclusion about poor preservation and diffusion of these archives. It suggests the necessity of developing methods of virtual archive reconstruction. Originality/value This is the first study to date on the community archives in Russia. The first attempt to attribute and classify community archives of the NLR.