EHRI Workshop "New Views on Digital Archives"

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Monday, 23 November, 2015
17-18 November 2015, Munich, Institut für Zeitgeschichte

The aim of the EHRI work package “New Views on Digital Archives” is to support and develop creative forms of presentation of digital archival content and provide in-depth perspective on Holocaust sources by focusing on selected key thematic areas. The primary goals of these sub-projects within the second phase of EHRI are to develop – interlinked with the main EHRI portal – online editions of documents, an online document blog and online exhibitions. The first EHRI online document blog will be published on 27 January, to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day.

Munich session

EHRI partners Yad Vashem, the Wiener Library, King's College London and the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, particpated in a first internal workshop about "New Views on Digital Archives", that was organised by the Jewish Museum in Prague. The aim of this session in Munich was to discuss how the work is developing, as well as what the main topics and tasks are.

Online edition of documents

It was decided that the first online edition will focus on the diplomatic reports from the time of the Holocaust. Due to the great deal of experience the Institut für Zeitgeschichte already has in this field, they will take over the coordination of this task. The second online edition of documents will concentrate on the topic of early Holocaust documentation and early Holocaust testimonies. All of the institutions involved hold large amounts of highly interesting archival material which can be used. The online editions of documents will follow scientific criteria, providing an introduction as well as in depth analysis. Partners further discussed details relating to the document editions, such as the inclusion of various editing methods and possibilities, which could simplify searching within the editions.

Online document blog

The second part of the workshop focused on issues related to the creation of an online document blog, which will highlight individual documents and look at the information they can provide, the context in which they were produced and how the document might be used. As part of the workshop, each EHRI partner presented a first set of selected documents for the online document blog and had the chance to discuss them with their colleagues. Each partner institution will publish regular blog entries, presenting examples of archival documents that are typical for their archives. The Document Blog aims to offer more than a basic description of documents, instead offering contextual comments and additional information about the people, places and information in individual documents and collections.

Online exhibitions

On the second day of the workshop, the participants turned their attention to the topic of online exhibitions. Participants from Yad Vashem presented examples of their existing online exhibitions, sharing their knowledge and experience of the process. Various issues, such as the selection of specific topics for the online exhibitions or possible visualisation and presentation methods were discussed.

Tools

The internal workshop in Munich was a success in many ways and will shape our work going forward. As well as our aim of producing engaging online materials and enhancing access to documents, we also hope to support and encourage communities of researchers using the tools developed by the project.