AI Services Take On Yakutia’s National Library Archives
The National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) has digitized more than 140,000 unique cultural heritage objects – books, archival documents, rare publications, artifacts of material culture and other materials. The digital copies will serve as the foundation for publicly accessible services, including catalogs, 3D models, educational tools and research resources.
Systematic digitization of the region’s linguistic and cultural heritage has been underway in the Republic of Sakha since 2022 as part of an effort to preserve it. Recently, the automated information system Obekty kulturnogo naslediya (Cultural Heritage Objects), or AIS OKN, began operating in pilot mode. The new digital platform brings together information on the republic’s historical and cultural monuments, their registration records and spatial data. The National Library of Yakutia is also digitizing its archives. More than 140,000 unique books and documents are now available electronically. Ten prototype AI services have been developed to work with the archive: Yakutia Expert, AI Reader, Istiŋ, Saŋa-suruk, Voice.NLRS, Dataset Platform, AI Cataloging, Articles From Newspapers of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), AI Bibliographer Assistant and MaksIIm (MaxAIm).
Preserving History and Identity
The project helps preserve Yakutia’s historical heritage while developing the region’s cultural digital infrastructure. That is particularly relevant during Russia’s Year of Unity of the Peoples, as the initiative is intended to strengthen interethnic harmony and preserve the region’s identity, language, history and traditions. “We need to do everything necessary to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of the regions and their identity. People should feel the connection between generations, genuinely share the values that have always mattered to our society, and know how much we have to be proud of, what we can and should be proud of,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said, emphasizing the importance of preserving regional identity.
A Foundation for New Projects
The digitized materials will provide the foundation for projects designed to offer a deeper look at the region and its potential, including 3D Cultural Heritage Objects of Yakutia, Cultural Code of Yakutia, Virtual Museum of the State and Official Languages of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Olonkho website and other digital resources.
The 3D Cultural Heritage Objects of Yakutia project lets users examine traditional clothing, jewelry, household objects and works of decorative and applied art from every angle. Digital models make objects physically held in museum collections accessible to a wider audience. Cultural Code of Yakutia combines a digital audio archive of the musical folklore of the peoples of North Asia with digital reconstructions of traditional ornaments. The collection contains more than 300 digital images of ornaments created on the basis of research by the Arctic State Institute of Culture and Arts.
The National Library of Yakutia was among the first libraries in Russia to begin introducing AI into library operations – to build services, work with large volumes of information and preserve cultural memory. “We are working to make Yakutia’s cultural heritage accessible to everyone, wherever they may be. The main goal is to create a unified digital system that brings together all of the republic’s cultural treasures, so that any resident of the Arctic or visitor from abroad can discover Yakutia’s cultural code literally with one click,” said Afanasy Noev, the republic’s minister of culture and spiritual development.
More Than Digitization
Yakutia is building a regional digital ecosystem for cultural data. Over several years, the republic has progressed from establishing a specialized center and purchasing scanning equipment to 3D digitization, building speech datasets and developing applied AI services.
The resulting digital archive creates a foundation for further work with the data. Plans include intelligent search, automated cataloging, models for recognizing and synthesizing the Yakut language, as well as virtual museums and educational products built around digitized cultural monuments.
The republic is setting an example for other Russian regions. Yakutia is transforming cultural heritage from a collection of physical holdings into a machine-readable dataset for AI. It is the combination of cultural preservation, digitization of a low-resource language, 3D technologies and artificial intelligence that sets the project apart from conventional archive digitization.
