Monthly Archives: February 2016

Collection of the Armenian cultural heritage in Bucharest

The Digital Library of Bucharest (formerly “DacoRomanica”), operated by the Metropolitan Library, started a few years ago the buildup of a collection of the cultural heritage of the Armenian minority on the territory of Romania. As was stated by Florin Rotaru, the founder and former director of DacoRomanica and initiator of the portal of collections of ethnical minority heritage (“Bucharests Multiculturalism“), the project was triggered by a large, but finally unperilous fire in 2008 in the building which hosted the library and archive of the Armenian Church in Bucharest. Continue reading Collection of the Armenian cultural heritage in Bucharest

Online Survey on the digitization of German-language cultural materials in Eastern Europe

The Institute for East and Southeast European Studies conducted some time ago a survey among 50 national and regional libraries in Eastern and Southeastern Europe which are involved in major digitization projects. The survey’s main objectives were: Continue reading Online Survey on the digitization of German-language cultural materials in Eastern Europe

Online Document Book on the History of the Germans in Transylvania (1185 – 1531)

Funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (Bundesbeauftragte für Kultur und Medien)  the “Urkundenbuch zur Geschichte der Deutschen in Siebenbürgen”, originally published in a print edition in 7 volumes from 1892-1991, was digitized and converted into a freely accessible database: Continue reading Online Document Book on the History of the Germans in Transylvania (1185 – 1531)

Digitization project on textual materials of Finno-Ugric population groups

The National Library of Finland is conducting since 2012 until late 2016 a major digitization project on the cultural heritage of Finno-Ugric minorities:

“The project will produce digitized materials in the Uralic languages as well as their development tools to support linguistic research and citizen science. The resulting materials will constitute the largest resource for the Uralic languages in the world. Through this project, researchers will gain access to corpora which they have not been able to study before and to which all users will have open access regardless of their place of residence.” Continue reading Digitization project on textual materials of Finno-Ugric population groups

Determining the identity canon of a multicultural region – public online survey of the Borussia Foundation

The well-known Borussia Foundation (Fundacja Borussia Olsztyn / Borussia – Stiftung und Kulturgemeinschaft Olsztyn/Allenstein), dedicated to researching and conveying the culture and history of the historical regions of Warmia and Masuria, recently started a highly interesting and promising online survey. Continue reading Determining the identity canon of a multicultural region – public online survey of the Borussia Foundation

RomArchive – digital archive of the arts of the Roma

Finally a major and promising digitization project on cultural materials of Roma minorities receives substantial funding:

“The German Federal Cultural Foundation [Kulturstiftung des Bundes] supports the establishment of a digital archive of the arts of the Roma. RomArchive is to become an internationally accessible space that makes the cultures and histories of the Roma visible. From 2015 to 2019, an international collection of art from all disciplines will be gathered, enhanced by scholarly texts and historical documents and accompanied by a programme of educational and cultural events. Each section of RomArchive will have its own expert team of curators, responsible for that section’s contents. RomArchive makes no claims to completeness, but sees itself as a continuously growing platform featuring representative collections. With its curated contents, modern storytelling, and intelligent contextualisation, RomArchive differs from static databases in both aesthetics and methodology.” Continue reading RomArchive – digital archive of the arts of the Roma