Tag Archives: German-language minorities

Online Bibliography on German-language periodicals from Eastern Europe

In order to provide for the first time a complete overview and compilation of the German-language press from Eastern Europe, I started in 2012 to collect all available bibliographical data on newspapers, journals, popular calendars, almanachs and yearbooks which were published by members of German-language minorities in this part of the continent. Continue reading Online Bibliography on German-language periodicals from Eastern Europe

Online Lexicon on the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe

Providing referenced knowledge on minorities is the basis for future research progress and consequently for a successful, substantial cultural preservation – notably in the internet, where a considerable or even the biggest part of information is procured. Relying on the Wikipedia is not a viable solution: it is a huge platform for information with a strong mobilisation for crowdsourcing, but it still has many gaps and several flaws and is due to the lack of a scientific quality control not quotable. Especially regarding minorities the quality problem is quite severe: the Wikipedia articles on them are either written by authors who have limited knowledge of the culture and history of the respective minorities – mistakes or outdated theses are a common occurrence – or they are part of these and therefore influencing in a subjective, sometimes manipulative way the presented theses and perspectives. For solving this issue there are two possibilities: 1) digitizing older printed publications with referenced knowledge; 2) compose new ones. Continue reading Online Lexicon on the Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe

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)

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

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

Digitization project on German-language Jewish periodicals from Eastern Europe

The Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS, Regensburg/Germany) is conducting a 12-month project for the digitization of 45 Jewish German-language newspapers, popular calendars and yearbooks from Eastern Europe, published in the time period of 1863 to 1940. Continue reading Digitization project on German-language Jewish periodicals from Eastern Europe

International Workshop: Digitizing German-Language Cultural Heritage from Eastern Europe

Conference organizer: Institute for East and Southeast European Studies

April 27-28, 2015, Regensburg

For several years the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) is conducting digitization projects on German-language cultural materials from Eastern Europe. Based on these experiences the IOS invited with funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media librarians and archivists from Germany as well as from Estonia, Israel, Austria, Poland and Romania to an international workshop with the following objectives: 1) discussion on the progress of the digitization of the cultural heritage of German-language minorities with presentations of current projects and programs; 2) assessment of the potentials and modalities for international collaboration; 3) possibilities of implementing minority heritage into digital national libraries; 4) potentials of new technological developments; 5) delineation of new concepts for a digitization strategy. Continue reading International Workshop: Digitizing German-Language Cultural Heritage from Eastern Europe