Minorities Records. Transfering cultural diversity into the digital (Weblog)

The weblog’s primary objective is to provide reliable information on the current digitization process on historical ethnical minorities in Europe. For that purpose the editorial team will write themselves papers – especially on the numerous German minorities in Eastern and Southeastern Europe – and also ask involved librarians and archivists across Europe for their contributions by presenting their institution’s digitization activities on minority heritage. A special attention is to be given to urgent desiderata for digitization, e.g. for highly endangered stocks of cultural materials which need to be digitized at the soonest; establishing, promoting and improving international collaboration for successfully conducting joint projects is therefore an important goal of the information service provided by the blog. A part of that is also the informing on technical issues like e.g. standards or new technologies and the evaluation of possibilities for the division of labour (e.g. providing Optical Character Recognition for Armenian, Gothic or Hewbrew letters or long-term digital preservation).

Secondary the blog will develop that accumulated knowledge to viable concepts for digitization strategies which are to be reviewed and debated by the community. In order to further advance such concepts the blog will also serve as platform for the announcement and networking of scientific events on the issue and for the publication and discussion of selected papers. One of the goals is to develop strategies to such a level that these can serve as a guideline for future cultural policies and new funding programs which are essential for a successful medium-term digitization of minority heritage.

Thirdly the blog aims at discussing general theories on the digitization of cultural heritage and seeks answers to questions around the digital cultural canon of an ethnical or cultural community and the cultural motorics of digitized and born-digital materials. The basic hypothesis is that all these mechanisms are better visible and analyzable in connection with minority heritage, making the blog a scientific undertaking of general interest.

• Beschreibung des Projektes: Albert Weber: Minorities Records. Ein Weblog als Diskussionsplattform zur Digitalisierung des Kulturerbes historischer ethnischer Minderheiten, erschienen in: Mitteilungen der Vereinigung österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare, Bd. 2, Nr. 69 (2016) Schwerpunktthema „Gender & Diversity“ (Beitrag als PDF)