Established in 1994 for the sake of integration of basic science and education.  The major idea of the Museum foundation  was to  preserve the historic memory about the SPIIRAS formation and development  along with the informatics science, as well as to introduce the secondary school pedagogic and students’ peers to 150  years’ history of one of the best Petersburg schools and its principles of  a humane pedagogy (among the Carl May School alumni are 40 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Fine Arts, 156 Full Professors, two ministers, seven governors, four members of the State Council, twenty generals and admirals, three Heroes of Socialist Labor, two pilot-cosmonauts G. M. Grechko and A. I. Borisenko).
 Pursuant to the resolution of the SPIIRAS Scientific Council of April 29, 2008 No. 5 the Museum was included into the Institute structure. The Museum exposition is located on the ground floor of the historic building and encompasses the following sections: the SPIIRAS History, the Carl  May (1856-1918) School History, the Soviet School History, Academician Dmitry S. Likhachev and the Roerichs in C. May Gymnasium. The Museum collection numbers over five thousand items. Annually the Museum receives about 1200 excursionists from St. Petersburg and other places in Russia and beyond.  The Museum holds special methodical seminars, mainly for the pedagogues of the Russian North-West. The Museum site www.kmay.ru  also contributes to the propagation of the historic and humanitarian ideas laid by the described entities.
The Museum activities are regularly covered in mass media, including press, radio and TV. There exists a tradition of annual meetings of the School alumni and former pedagogues . The Museum Director Mr. Nikita V. Blagovo has written and published a three-volume monograph entitled “School on Vasilievsky Island”, sometime later appeared one more publication “The Roerich Family in C. May Gymnasium”. It is worth noting that the Museum regularly publishes information booklets in three languages. The scientific and historic conference in commemoration of the Museum fifteenth anniversary was hold in 2010; the event scope was duly reflected in a special collection of the Conference papers “In Service to Fatherland”. In 2010 the Museum had been accepted as a new member for the Union of Museums of Russia, and the Museum Director Mr. Nikita V. Blagovo had been awarded the Academician Dmitry S. Likhachev Prize for Preservation of the Cultural Heritage.
Using the Museum’s factual database SPIIRAS scientists run enlightenment and educational activities at the secondary and higher schools of St. Petersburg promoting, at that, the best scientific, pedagogic, cultural and ethical traditions of the Russian education and science.