Museums · 2020
The library of besieged Leningrad at the Victory Museum
Museums / The library of besieged Leningrad at the Victory Museum
About the project
An interactive card catalogue for the recreated reading room of the Leningrad Public Library in the “Feat of the People” exhibition at the Victory Museum, 2020.
On 16 July 2020, after the coronavirus restrictions were lifted, the Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Hill opened the “Feat of the People” exhibition to visitors — about how Victory was forged on the home front. It was prepared for the 75th anniversary of Victory.
One of the zones of the exhibition is the reading room of the State Public Library in besieged Leningrad: wooden shelves of books, tables with green lamps, and “projection windows” showing newsreels. The exhibition was built by the general contractor. For the room we made an interactive card catalogue — a touch screen in a library cabinet, styled as a catalogue drawer.
Year
2020
Industry
Museums
Scope of work
An interactive card catalogue, 15 sections
Venue
Victory Museum, “Feat of the People” exhibition, Moscow
- 15
- sections in the interactive card catalogue
- 1080×1920
- resolution of the vertical touch screen
- 16.07.2020
- opening of the “Feat of the People” exhibition
The task
In the reading room, visitors explore digital materials from the Russian State Library, books from the Victory Museum collection and wartime periodicals. For the whole exhibition the general contractor set a condition: the technology must not “clash” with the historically accurate sets or break their style. The digital part of the room needed an entry point in the same textures of wood and paper as the library itself.
What we did
Interactive card catalogue
A vertical touch screen is built into a library cabinet next to a large screen on which a wartime librarian sits at a desk among books. The card catalogue shows fifteen wooden drawers with paper labels in brass frames. The visitor touches a drawer, it slides forward, and the rest fade into shadow.
Fifteen sections
“The war economy”, “Everyday life of Soviet people”, “Cultural education”, “The feat of Leningrad”, “Museums and archives”, “Sport in the war years”, “Education in the war years”, “The Party”, “Women, children and the war”, “The contribution of the regions”, “Cities of labour valour”, “Government agencies”, “Public organisations”, “Newspapers and magazines”, “The reserve capital of the USSR”.
How it is built
The card catalogue screen is vertical, 1080×1920, and sits in a cabinet behind glass. The interface was drawn to match the room: drawers with different wood textures, paper labels in brass holders, bar handles.
Result
The room opened to visitors together with the exhibition on 16 July 2020; the museum announced the recreated library in April 2020. According to the museum press office, the digital reading room holds more than 1 500 articles and documents — including on public organisations and government agencies, museums and archives, and education in the war years; these are the same topics as on the catalogue drawers.
The “Feat of the People” exhibition as a whole won the Guiding Star award in the “Moscow impressions: exhibitions and museums” category in 2022 and 2023.
