The first ADIT conference, "The Use of Information Technology in Museums and Practical Results of Experimental Research," was held at the Russian Ethnographic Museum (Saint Petersburg), March 19 to 23, 1997. The main idea of the first conference was to establish a "Professional Club of Specialists" and analyze the state of IT use in museum activities.
It is crucial that the high standard of ADIT conferences was established from the very beginning. ADIT-97 was organized by the Russian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the Union of Creative Museum Workers of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, with the participation of the State Hermitage Museum, research organizations (e.g., the Central Research Institute of RTK), and a number of companies (e.g., AMPRO, ALT-SOFT, etc.). Monika Hagendorn-Saupe, Deputy Director of the Berlin Institute for Museum Research (Germany) and a member of the CIDOC organizing committee, attended the ADIT'97 conference as a guest.
In addition to ADIT, all subsequent conferences were organized by local and federal state and public cultural bodies (including the Russian Ministry of Culture), leading regional museums and universities, representatives of ICOM committees, and leading professionally oriented scientific and technical associations and companies (both Russian and international). The conferences received support from various foundations, including the Russian Foundation for Basic Research.
The main results of the first conference included the creation of a database of museum IT specialists and a database of methodological developments in museum IT in Russia; a competition among Russian museums in the categories of "Databases," "Multimedia Electronic Publications," and "Internet Sites."
