Digital tools in the hands of humanists
On February 16, 2024 at the UWr, a letter of intent between the “Remembrance and Future” Centre, which runs History Centre Zajezdnia, and the University of Wrocław was signed by Rector of the University of Wrocław prof. dr hab. Robert Olkiewicz and dr hab. Wojciech Kucharski, Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs of “Remembrance and Future” Centre.
The letter concerns joint activities related to the development of regional digital services for cultural institutions in the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) area. The institutions will collectively support research and educational activities in the field of digital humanities.
What is GLAM? “It is an acronym referring to public and private institutions collecting cultural heritage (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums)” explains Tomasz Kalota, the University of Wrocław Rector’s representative for regional GLAM. “Each such institution fulfills specific, interrelated roles concerning the collection, development of preservation, and sharing with the public of parts of the cultural heritage in its care.”
The cooperation between the “Remembrance and Future” Centre running the History Centre Zajezdnia and the University of Wrocław concerns the exchange of technological, organisational, and logistical experiences and the development of prototype IT solutions.
“Among other things, we intend to prepare a pilot presentation of written materials in the AtoM system with a textual layer enabling full-text search of the content provided in the “Remembrance and Future” Centre. For this purpose, we plan to use the experiences and digital services created in our University Library” says Tomasz Kalota.
The cooperation will include tasks related to the development of digital services (e.g. TransLab – Virtual Transcription Laboratory, IIIF streaming) supporting the functioning of the regional GLAM and the development of the idea of a regional GLAM. In this context, the experience of the employees of the “Remembrance and Future” Centre and the History Centre Zajezdnia in the preparation and sharing of materials concerning oral history will be crucial.
“The Centre has been cooperating with the University for many years in conducting a course of study history in public space” – emphasises dr hab. Wojciech Kucharski, Deputy Director for “Remembrance and Future” Centre.
Thanks to the technological experience of the University, the collections and publications of the “Remembrance and Future” Centre will be more accessible. “Thanks to our experience in creating archives of oral history, we will be able to jointly work out and develop tools facilitating analytical work of researchers using these sources” – says dr hab. Wojciech Kucharski. “Every year we organise exhibitions dedicated to the post-war history of Wrocław together, and today we expand this cooperation to include the presentation and dissemination of knowledge about the past to a wider group of researchers and audiences” he adds.
The aim of the cooperation is to jointly test and implement IT and logistics solutions for the implementation of digitisation projects and the expansion of platforms providing digitised resources with new, also specialized forms of audio, video, 3D, RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging), or multispectral imaging presentations.
All this is to serve the development of services and tools supporting scientific and research activities, especially in the field of digital humanities. The development of researchers’ digital competencies is not without significance here.
Press materials from the University of Wrocław and the “Remembrance and Future” Centre (History Centre Zajezdnia); in the photos: Rector of the University of Wrocław prof. dr hab. Robert Olkiewicz and dr hab. Wojciech Kucharski, Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs of the “Remembrance and Future” Centre, and Tomasz Kalota (authorized representative of the Rector of the University of Wrocław for GLAM) and dr Dariusz Misiejuk (History Centre Zajezdnia).
Translated by Karolina Łodyga (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
