“Europeana 1914-1918” is a large-scale project to digitize and publish primary and secondary historical sources about the First World War . It is coordinated by the Library of Europeans , as part of a broader program for digitizing European cultural heritage.
The collection consists of three main elements. The first, called Europaean 1914-1918 , collects digitized memorabilia and personal stories from people's lives, it also includes a series of open seminars at which various materials can be scanned or photographed. The second, the European Collections of 1914-1918 , is a coordinated digitization program run by the ten largest libraries in eight European countries. The third element, EFG1914 , is a project to digitize a significant number of wartime silent films, which runs the .
History
The Europeanan project 1914-1918 was publicly announced in 2011 as the "Europeanan Collections 1914-1918: Remembering the First World War", with the goal of digitizing more than 400,000 documents submitted by 13 institutions [1] . The original plan included the digitization of about 425,000 positions in partner institutions. They should be added to 27,000 items (mainly photographs from the UK and France) already available in Europeans, and about 75,000 already digitized, but not yet added to Europeans. The main focus of the project was on “special collections” - manuscripts, works of art, rare books, maps, music, etc. - with the emphasis on making most of the material rare or unique. The collection will be hosted in several institutions, but will be available through an aggregated service; where possible, copyright issues will be resolved in such a way as to ensure maximum accessibility of the material [2] .
It was assumed that the project would cost about 5.4 million euros, the bulk of which, 3.1 million euros, falls on staff in partner institutions, and 1 million on subcontractors for digitization (the bulk of the digitization was carried out on their own).
After digitization, material from the “Collection” was posted on the website of Europian, the first collections (newspapers from Austria and photographs / magazines from Italy) became available in March 2012. The first public events dedicated to digitized collections took place in 2013 and were held until the end of the project in 2014 [3] .
In March 2011, the public project "Europeana 1914-18" was open to accept online applications and began to conduct the first public presentations. At these events, members of the public were invited to bring things or documents to digitize and to record information or stories related to them. By December 2013, 51 such sessions were held across Europe [4] . This community initiative used the Community Collection Model, founded by Stuart Lee and Keith Lindsey at Oxford University in 2008 [5] and used by The Great War Archive . Oxford University partnered with Europeana 1914-1918, supporting the development of an online platform and the preparation of all institutions that delivered presentations.
Opening and Reception
The main public portal of the entire project ( europeana1914-18.eu ) was launched at the Berlin State Library on January 29, 2014 by , the German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media. At the time of launch, the site had about 400,000 digitized objects from partner institutions, 90,000 “personal” items and 660 hours of films [6] .
Public attention to the “Collection” was often drawn to individual elements or small collections. For example, the digitized correspondence from the Indian Library of the British Library was used to cover the participation of Indian soldiers, especially on the Western Front [7] [8] . An early find during a public digitization project - a postcard sent by Adolf Hitler to his associate during his stay in the hospital - attracted much media attention [9] .
Notes
- ↑ Thorpe, Vanessa . Europe's archived trove of rare Great War documents goes online , Observer (November 13, 2011).
- ↑ Description of Work: Europeana Collections 1914-1918 (version 1.2) , 2013 , < http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-collections-1914-1918/outcomes/-/document_library_display/fTO5/view/0/ 61602 > . Retrieved April 27, 2017. Archived May 8, 2014 on Wayback Machine
- ↑ Europeana Collections 1914-1918: Events (2013).
- ↑ Europeana 1914-1918: Background (unreachable link) (2013). Archived on September 16, 2013.
- ↑ Lee, Stuart. If You Build It, They Will Scan: Oxford University's Exploration of Community Collections // Educause Quarterly: journal. - 2009 .-- 30 July ( vol. 32 , no. 2 ).
- ↑ Bradley, Phil Europeana 1914-1918: the untold stories and official histories . Information Today (February 14, 2014).
- ↑ Nagra, Daljit . The last post: letters home to India during the first world war , Guardian (February 21, 2014).
- ↑ Subramanian, Samanth . The forgotten Indian soldiers of WWI's European battlefields (March 9, 2014).
- ↑ Coughlan, Sean . Hitler postcard found in World War I project , BBC News Online (May 2, 2012).
Links
- europeana1914-1918.eu - the official website of Europeana 1914-1918
- The collections of Europeans 1914-1918
- European Film Gateway 1914