Culture and memory in the Digital Age: Europeana.eu

Europeana is an online resource for digitized cultural materials from all across Europe. More than 2,000 institutions have contributed to Europeana and the collections continue to grow. The history of this online source is an interesting one. In 2005, former president of France, Jacques Chirac, along with six Heads of State from across Europe, called for the creation of a European digital library in a letter to the European Commission. The project has developed and flourished over time, encompassing different aspects of information technology.

The Europeana Foundation is the leading body of the entire project, which includes the digital library at europeana.eu. The Foundation is also head of the Linked Open Data project. Several countries are already participating in the linked open data project by providing data sets of raw data. These are available for anyone to use. The project will undoubtedly continue to grow, and more data will be made available over time.

There are several ways to explore the digital library using the main Europeana search portal. Images, text, sounds and video make up the available items and material, and extensive metadata is included with each entry. Subject or descriptor headings are linkable, so one item will lead the scholar to other similar items with just one click. Many of the descriptors are in English, as well as in the language of the originating institution.  Another unique feature of Europeana is the collection of online exhibitions.

Each exhibition has a theme, and all images or sound files included are annotated in detail right on the page. Certain exhibitions are hosted by partner institutions, while most are compiled by Europeana, which uses its collections provided by institutions of cultural memory from across Europe. 

Europeana is also very active on social media sites, including Pinterest. This is the perfect forum for Europeana's content, as it has included tons of images, and organized them by theme on different boards. You do not need a Pinterest account access these boards. 

Finally, Europeana recently launched a project called "Europeana 1989: We made history". Working with HistoryPin, an online community where people can "pin" images to certain places on a map, Europeana's newest project is a crowd-sourcing endeavor. People are invited to contribute their pictures and stories about where they were in 1989, what life was like and what was happening at the time. The project only launched in early June 2013 and is growing at quite the pace. Consider exploring the contributions, or adding something yourself!

Polish digital photo archive

One of the types of materials frequently requested by patrons, but not always easy to locate, are photographs of particular historical persons, events or locations. Polish non-profit organization, Ośrodek Karta, which is dedicated to preserving historical materials. Among other initiatives, the organization is dedicated to digitizing its collection of over 160,000 photographs illustrating the social history of Poland and East-Central Europe in the 20th century. Although not the entire corpus has been made available online yet, the archive’s website it is well worth visiting. Some of the photographs in the collection have been donated by private persons, others are works of renowned Polish photojournalists. The range of the subjects covered is broad, from early 20th century pictures of the activities of the Warsaw Cycling Society, to portraits of the KOR and Solidarity leadership. The best represented, however are photographs showing everyday life in the Polish People’s Republic, Polish Armed Forces in the West and, perhaps most importantly ,the photographic evidence of the life of the Polish Gulag prisoners, as well as photos associated with the Katyn massacre. A separate, very interesting collection, are samizdat postcards produced during the explosion of the Solidarity movement and the martial law. One hopes that the cooperation of the archive with its sponsors continues and more of its unique collections become available electronically. To reach the archive use the URL: http://www.karta.org.pl/archiwa_i_bazy_danych/Archiwum_Fotografii/49

The Soviet Gulag: An Online Resource

"Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives" @ http://gulaghistory.org/ Today’s digital technologies create strong imperatives for collaboration between academic historians and museums, libraries, and archives across the world. "Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives" is one example of such collaboration. The website located at http://gulaghistory.org/ is supported by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in Virginia in association with the Gulag Museum in Perm’, Russia and the International Memorial Society in Moscow, Russia. The project is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities; Title VIII, The U.S. Department of State; Kennan Institute; and Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. "Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives" presents an in-depth look at life in the Gulag through exhibits featuring original documentaries and prisoner voices. From the front page, one may navigate tothe Archive, Exhibits or the Resources page. The Archive page may be browsed and searched either by keywords or by tags. The page contains text documents as well as photographs and other graphic resources related to the history ofthe Gulag. All materials are supplied with short bibliographic descriptions in English. Scanned copies of original documents in Russian are provided in a PDF format. The Exhibits link takes visitors on a thematic exploration of Gulag life, including a virtual tour of the reconstructed camp and museum made possible by the Gulag Museum in Perm, known as the gateway to Siberia. Online Exhibitions are available in Russian as well as English. The Resources page provides a list of recommended readings and curricula materials for history teachers. An important asset of this online resource is contribution of Steve Barnes, a Professor of History at George Mason University who hosts “Episodes in Gulag History,” designed as a series of conversations with scholars about the history and legacy of the Soviet Gulag system. Due to the fact that the website is still very much work-in-progress, only Episode 1 is available from the Resources page at this time (http://gulaghistory.org/podcast/). Episode 1 features a conversation with Lynne Viola, a Professor of History at the University of Toronto. It is available for download via Windows Media Player. The website allows you not only to subscribe to the Episodes via RSS feeds, but also to engage in a scholarly discussion in the blog area provided. Although the website appears to be in the process of construction, and it is hard to pinpoint the time of the last update, we recommend it as a useful resource for scholars interested in the Gulag history. Its major strength lies in its connection to the Museum in Perm’ and International Memorial Society in Moscow allowing instant access to materials that would be otherwise hard to obtain.