nnic.r52.ru was the website of the state educational institution "Nizhny Novgorod Scientific and Information Center" (NNIC), which operated in the Nizhny Novgorod domain zone r52.ru in the early 2000s. The Center was established by the Department of Education and Science of the Nizhny Novgorod Region administration and occupied offices 17 and 18 at house 25 on Oktyabrskaya Street in Nizhny Novgorod (postal code 603005)[1]. The footer of the page carried the copyright notice "© 2000 NNIC"; the markup was done by the company "Info-online," with hosting provided by r52.ru[1]. Surviving web archive snapshots span the period from May 2001 to January 2002[1][3].

What the Center did

As the home page stated, NNIC was "an element of the infrastructure supporting the region's scientific and technical complex," and its activity was "aimed at intensifying the use of the scientific and technical potential of the Nizhny Novgorod Region in the interests of the regional economy"[1]. Its practical task was framed as intermediary work: the Center undertook to connect research organizations with industrial enterprises, Russian and foreign science and technology support funds, and other clients for development work[1].

The list of areas of work was fixed and repeated from snapshot to snapshot: helping enterprises of the Nizhny Novgorod Region establish international partnerships; legal protection of intellectual property; regional review of scientific organizations for state accreditation; training in innovation management, marketing, and other programs; and providing access to information resources and databases on science and technology[1][2]. Contact details were given in full on the page: telephone 19-97-73, fax (8312) 19-97-80, e-mail nnic@sandy.ru, website address http://www.nnic.r52.ru[1].

The home page as a bulletin board

Below the description of the Center ran a feed of short notices — in effect, announcements for Nizhny Novgorod enterprises and scientists. In May 2001 the home page announced the consulting and educational project "How to Enter the International Market: Establishing a Foreign Partnership," noting that a number of Nizhny Novgorod companies were already taking part in it[1]. The same page reported that a draft law on scientific, technical, and innovation activity in the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Region had been posted on the site: comments and remarks were to be sent to the Department of Education and Science at izah@dep.sci-nnov.ru, addressed to Igor Leonidovich Zakharov[1]. A separate line announced that, starting May 15, 2001, the Swiss technical assistance foundation Swisscontact was launching the "Ecology and Business" project[1].

By December 2001 the set of announcements had changed. The top line advertised B. Twiss's book "Forecasting for Technologists and Engineers," offered for order[2]. Below it were invitations to take part in the Second International Salon of Innovations and Investments and in the Fourth International All-Siberian Innovation Forum "Using Intellectual Potential for Regional Economic Development," as well as a notice that on July 15, 2001, the US Embassy in Moscow had opened the competition for Fulbright Scholar Exchange grants for the 2002–2003 academic year[2].

The updated 2002 site

The last surviving snapshot, from January 25, 2002, shows a different page: the description of the Center had disappeared from it, leaving only navigation[3]. The menu was split into two parts. A service line led to a "Bulletin Board" and "Links" and credited the design author — "Web design: Sergous." The main block consisted of the sections "About the Organization," "News," the newspaper "Poisk — NN," "New Education for Scientists," "International Partnership," "International Business," "Modern Information Resources," "Text Translation," "Intellectual Property Protection," and "Technologies for Your Business"[3]. The composition of the menu shows that by 2002 the site had grown from a business-card page into a small industry portal: alongside the description of services it had gained a news section, a page for the regional science newspaper, and a bulletin board.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet and the fate of the domain

The site came into our sample from the directory of the nn.ru portal, whose entry reproduced the first phrase of the Center's description from the home page. No positions for it are recorded in our surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru rating, nor any votes in our data for the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day; the domain nnic.r52.ru does not appear in the published table of the 2004 voting results[4] — by that time the site had already stopped being updated. For more on the sample and methodology, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

The last snapshot of the site in the web archive is dated January 25, 2002[3]; no later copies of the home page have survived. The domain nnic.r52.ru no longer exists today. As an institution under regional jurisdiction, it made do without its own second-level name: a third-level address and space on the regional host r52.ru covered all its needs[1]. For the network environment in which such a site existed, see the article Nizhny Novgorod Internet.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)