Category Archives: Strategy papers

Historical popular calendars as a valuable source

Strategy papers,

Related to my former post on the importance of newspaper digitization I’d like to additionally present a few theses on another type of periodicals which is still widely neglected despite its cultural value:

1. Popular calendars1 are of high relevance because they were very likely read by most people who were ordinary or occasional readers. Beside chapters on chronology and general information (e.g. the city’s addresses, market days, prizes of post offices, currency value etc.), these publications also provided essayistic or poetic works. Calendars thus served as reading materials for the higher and middle as well as for the lower strata of society because they were a very useful tool due to their calendarical as well as their socially important information which was presented in a readable, sorted and well-arranged way. Continue reading Historical popular calendars as a valuable source →

  1. For numerous examples please visit my institute’s website: http://www.ios-regensburg.de/informationsinfrastruktur/bibliothek/digitale-bibliothek/volkskalender.html  [↩]

Why we should digitize historical newspapers – theses on their importance for minority heritage

Strategy papers, ,

In the following I am discussing some theses on historical newspaper digitization which appeared during my projects on periodicals from German-language minorities at the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies:

I. Newspapers contain very diverse information, hence being an excellent source for various scientific disciplines and historical education. Being originally addressed to the public they offer information which was deemed relevant for a considerable part of a community or an entire society. Newspapers therefore provide a cross section through the knowledge which circulated in a certain time period and region. Because these do not demand an overly substantial historical knowledge and are chronologically structured, newspapers are excellent materials for student research projects. Beside documenting the history of knowledge and information delivery, reading newspapers is also an efficient training for information competence. However the scans need to be processed with performant OCR in order to enable an easier access to the huge amount of text. Continue reading Why we should digitize historical newspapers – theses on their importance for minority heritage →

Digitizing and presenting minority heritage – from the ,classical’ to the ,digital cultural canon’

General information, Strategy papers

The following paper was presented by Albert Weber (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (Regensburg/Germany)) at the Conference „Regional Identity and Social Cohesion” on 25 October 2013 in Timişoara/Romania.

Abstract

In the past years digital national libraries have been founded in almost every European state. Despite their partially high technical standards these libraries often do not follow yet elaborated digitization strategies, a fact that displays itself especially in the selection of materials for digitization: most digitized materials belong to the state nation, i.e. the majority, while the heritage of the historical national minorities within the state as well as of the own minorities abroad is often neglected, or not properly presented by a clear separation from the majority’s materials. The present paper discusses the currently existing possibilities for efficiently digitizing and presenting the cultural materials of a nation and its neighboring historical national minorities as well as of multicultural regions populated by several ethnic groups. The paper concludes with a short analysis of the importance of digitization (“digital cultural motorics”) for individual, social and ethnic identities by theorizing about the relation of the classical cultural canon and the digital cultural canon, which is forming today and deeply influencing the future cultural development. Continue reading Digitizing and presenting minority heritage – from the ,classical’ to the ,digital cultural canon’ →

Coordinating the digitization of German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe – a concept proposal for an International Working Group

Communication, International Workshop 2015 ,Digitizing-German language cultural heritage', Network, Strategy papers,

[Paper by Albert Weber (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies) at the International Workshop Digitizing German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe on April 28, 2015:]

I will present you in the following our proposal for the buildup of organizational structures which could serve the process of digitizing the German-language heritage in Eastern Europe.

The current situation presents itself as a multitude of single projects which in the best cases are conducted in quite selective cooperations, including often no more than two or three partners. Consequently many possible synergy effects are not being exploited, resulting in unused potentials. A strategic organization of the digitization process can surely achieve a more efficient investment of financial means, a higher technical standard, a better modality of presentation and a faster accomplishment of a largely completion of the digitization of this heritage. Continue reading Coordinating the digitization of German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe – a concept proposal for an International Working Group →

Presentation of digitized German-language cultural materials from Eastern Europe

Presentation, Strategy papers,

[Contribution to the Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe:]

An essential aspect for a broader general reception of the digitized stocks is their clear and structured presentation as coherent corpora. One of the most important objectives of the process must therefore be the buildup of collections within major regional and digital national libraries. Continue reading Presentation of digitized German-language cultural materials from Eastern Europe →

Communication on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe

Communication, Strategy papers,

[Contribution to the Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe:]

Indispensable for a successful digitization process is the factor of communication between the digitizing institutions. A technical contribution for this desideratum is the buildup of a collaborative database for digitized German-language materials from Eastern Europe which could complement the aforementioned projected bibliographical database or even be based on it Continue reading Communication on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe →

Funding prospects for the digitization of German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe

Funding, Strategy papers,

[Contribution to the Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe:]

Producing legitimacy for the costly undertaking of the process of digitizing German-language cultural heritage must be a basic objective for the contributing institutions. This purpose however cannot exclusively be fulfilled by presenting it as collaborative and internationalized. In order to successfully lobby for it, the issue needs to be connected with the general consideration that all historical ethnical minority communities do have the right to have their heritage digitized by their home state’s institutions. Continue reading Funding prospects for the digitization of German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe →

Networking in the process of digitizing German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe

Network, Strategy papers,

[Contribution to the Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe:]

The formation of efficient organizational structures is essential for the coordination of the process which would otherwise be slowed down and miss the utilization of synergetic potentials like e.g. the division of labour and competences. The creation of an informal group as a think-tank on the digitization of German-language cultural heritage seems adequate for this purpose. Continue reading Networking in the process of digitizing German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe →

Selection of digitizable German-language cultural materials from Eastern Europe

Selection, Strategy papers,

[Contribution to the Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe:]

Decisive for a successful application for funding and for a project or program itself are conclusive criteria for the selection of the proposed stocks. If a digitization plan is not intended to serve the needs of a specific project, but furthermore to generally contribute to the cultural preservation of a minority, then the following regard should be given to the expected cultural impact level of the stocks, evaluating these as follows: 1) culturally significant; 2) culturally representative; 3) masterpieces; 4) unique; 5) endangered. Continue reading Selection of digitizable German-language cultural materials from Eastern Europe →

Documentation of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe

Documentation, Strategy papers,

[Contribution to the Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe:]

A reliable overview on a cultural heritage is provided by an elementary bibliography which is indicating the digitizable sources. In a first step the already existing bibliographical publications are to be evaluated. If major gaps of important, bibliographically undocumented materials are identified, these should eventually be resolved. In a second step the bibliographical data is to be digitized, merged and transferred to a database which is finally giving the necessary overview on the sources which provably existed. The third step is to verify their present existence by confronting the bibliographical data with the physically confirmed stocks in libraries, archives and even private collections. Continue reading Documentation of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe →

Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe

Communication, Documentation, Funding, General information, International Workshop 2015 ,Digitizing-German language cultural heritage', Network, Presentation, Selection, Strategy papers,

The following scheme is proposing a series of general guidelines on the process of digitizing German-language cultural heritage in East and Southeast Europe and explicitly requesting a critical feedback or review; please comment on it or write a reply post in order to initiate a continued discussion on the topic. Continue reading Strategy paper on the digitization of the German-language cultural heritage from Eastern Europe →