Peter John Mazzoglio
Digital Archives. Our archivist friends throughout world write us
Bulgaria:
5, Moskovska Str.
1000 SOFIA
The director del General Department of Archives at the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria, Ms Boryana Buzhashka, informs us that digitization is among the priority tasks of her Department, but it is still in a project status.
Canada:
Library and Archives Canada
395 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0N4
CANADA
Tel.: (613) 996-5115 or 1-866-578-7777
In developing its on-line vision, Library and Archives Canada is attempting to implement the Government of Canada's policy objective of making Canada the most connected country in the world. For Library and Archives Canada, this means making its research tools and the best of its collections available on-line. Partnerships with other archives, libraries and museums are an important element in their strategy to ensure that catalogues can be searched from a single point and that digital collections complement each other. The proposed partnership with the National Archives of Ireland provides an opportunity to use expertise developed in recent years to create a research tool which will be of great interest to Irish-Canadians as well as to other members of the Irish diaspora.
The Census of Canada, 1901 and the Census of the Northwest Provinces, 1906
The Library and Archives Canada 1901 and 1906 census websites are a rich source of information about Canada at the turn of the 20th century. These websites include the digitisation of 154,320 census pages that are linked to descriptions that are searchable through an on-line database. Extensive contextual and technical information about the census records themselves is available to facilitate researching and understanding this collection. Genealogists interested in researching their family history and researchers looking for information about communities across Canada heavily consult these records. The HTML pages (help pages, contextual information and search pages) on these websites receive an average of 41,182 visits per month, making these records one of LAC's most frequently consulted website.
1901 Census
http://www.archives.ca/02/020122_e.html
1906 Census
http://www.archives.ca/02/020153_e.html
Croatia:
Marulić square 21
ZAGREB
info@arhiv.hr
The assistant director of the Croatian State Archives, Mr Jozo Ivanovic, informs us that his institution has been using digitization for some years for various purposes, and is, of course, interested in developing this subject also in cooperation with the archives of other European countries.
Denmark:
Rigsarkivet
Rigsdagsgården 9
1218 København K
The head of the Department Bevarings-og Kassationsafdelingen, Ms Kirsten Villadsen Kristmar, tells us that information on the digitalisation of paper records and on the presevation of electronic records can be found on their site: http://www.sa.dk/sa/omarkiverne/english/default.htm.
France:
As the index of French digital collections is published in the Franco-Italian portal of digitised collections of the Michael Project, one can see it on the website: http://vernier.gamsau.archi.fr:9000/sdx/anum_portal/index.xsp?lang=en-GB
Ireland:
National Archives
Bishop St.
Dublin 8
The digital holdings in the National Archives of Ireland include a small collection of digitised images of a selection of our holdings, but the main project in which we are currently engaged relates to the digitisation of the Irish census returns for 1901 and 1911, a project which is being carried out in co-operation with Library and Archives Canada (LAC). For further details relating to this project, please see the press release given hereafter.
Elizabeth McEvoy,
Archivist,
National Archives,
Bishop St.
Dublin 8
Email: emcevoy@nationalarchives.ie
Web: http://www.nationalarchives.ie
Ph.: (01) 4072 382
Press Release 06/12/2005
O'Donoghue announces international cultural agreement with Canadian Government
John O'Donoghue, T.D., Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, today (Tuesday, 6th December, 2005) announced a ground-breaking international cultural agreement between the National Archives of Ireland and Library and Archives Canada, which will see the Irish Census Records for 1901 and 1911 digitised, indexed and placed online for free access by the 70 million Irish diaspora around the world. Library and Archives Canada, the leading experts in the cutting-edge archival digitisation process involved, anticipate strong interest in Canada, where 13% of the population claim Irish ancestry and where a similar online release of Canadian Census Returns over recent years evoked a huge response.
A fascinating first-hand record and evidence of their forebears' household, family, social circumstances and location one hundred years ago will be available to view online and download to anyone from December 2006, when the first phase comprising the Dublin Census Records 1911 will be released. The Records detail the name, age, sex, marital status, occupation, county and country of birth of everyone listed in every domestic dwelling, prison, hospital, industrial school etc, including their literacy level, ability to speak Irish, the number of years women were married and total number of children born.
The 3-year digitisation project will ultimately allow anyone in the world search for an Irish ancestor with minimal basic information, quickly and efficiently, and view a myriad of contextual historical information and imagery on contemporaneous events. Currently, records can only be seen at the National Archives in Dublin and searches are manual, can be cumbersome, and require specific information prior to searching.
At the agreement-signing, the Minister remarked, ‘Our records hold precious insights into Irish family history for millions at home and abroad - we hope this service in collaboration with our Canadian partners will connect many people globally to their cultural roots.’ Ian Wilson, Head of Library and Archives Canada, commented, ‘We share an ethos with the Irish Government of free access for all to their heritage and we welcome this opportunity to use our expertise in connecting even more Canadians to their history.’
For further press information, please contact Jacqui Mahon at Mahon O'Neill
on 087 226 8301, (01) 669 4762 or j.mahon@mahononeill.ie
The Census Records
The 1901 census is the earliest surviving government census for the thirty-two counties of Ireland. The 1911 census also survives in its entirety. The first full government census of Ireland was taken in 1821 with further censuses at ten-yearly intervals from 1831 through to 1911. The original census returns for 1861 and 1871 were destroyed shortly after the censuses were taken. Those for 1881 and 1891 were pulped during the First World War, probably because of the paper shortage. The returns for 1821, 1831, 1841 and 1851 were, apart from a few survivals, notably for a few counties for 1821 and 1831, destroyed in 1922 in the fire at the Public Record Office.
The census returns for 1901 and 1911 are now the most frequently used archives in the National Archives, accounting for approximately 40% of our productions. When they were released in 1961, the primary motivation in making them accessible was to make them freely available to solicitors for legal purposes. However, in practice the overwhelming majority of inspections of the returns have been made by genealogists, both amateur and professional. Historians and historical geographers have also made considerable use of the returns. There have been no privacy problems since 1961.
The returns for 1901 and 1911 are arranged by townland (the smallest division of land) or, in urban areas, by street. The 1901 census lists, for every member of each household; name, age, sex, relationship to head of the household, religion, occupation, marital status and county or country of birth. The census also records an individual's ability to read or write and ability to speak the Irish language. All of this information is given on Form A of the census which was filled in and signed by the head of each household. Where the head of the household could not write, his or her mark, usually an X, was recorded and witnessed by the enumerator.
The same information was recorded in the 1911 census, with one significant addition: married women were required to state the number of years they had been married, the number of their children born alive and the number still living.
In addition to returns for every household in the country, both censuses contain returns for police and military barracks, public and private asylums, prisons, hospitals, workhouses, colleges, boarding schools and industrial schools among other institutions.
The returns for both censuses also give details of houses, recording the number of windows, type of roof and number of rooms occupied by each family. Each house is also classified according to its overall condition. The number of out-offices and farm buildings attached to each household is also given. This information is recorded by the enumerator, who provided summaries of the returns for each townland and street, including the religious denomination of occupants.
These summaries include a list of heads of household, thus providing a nominal index for each townland or street.
The 1901 and 1911 censuses are an excellent source both for the history student and the genealogical researcher. They are obviously a principal source for Irish social and economic history in the early twentieth century. They also provide enormous scope for local study, and can be used with trade and street directories to provide detailed information on the composition and development of urban areas in particular.
Italy:
Looking forward to supply a detailed report on digitisation in Italy, you can visit the website of the State Archives www.archivi-sias.it and the website of the Michael Project www.michael-culture.org/copyright_i.html.
Liechtenstein:
Postfach 684
9490 Vaduz
Tel.: (+423) 236 63 40
The basic for our work is a data bank with over a million files. The access to these metadata-files is at the moment restricted. A few of them can be seen on our homepage www.la.llv.li. We look forward to making more of them accessible for the public through the query-file of our data bank.
Furthermore, in the National Archives of the principality of Liechtenstein, there are some projects in progress on the digitisation of frequently used government-files (Berichte und Anträge an die Regierung, Reports and requests to the government). Another project is to make the older newspapers of Liechtenstein machine-readable. Other projects on digitisation have to wait, since we are planning to move to an new archives building.
Rupert Tiefenthaler
Archivist
Norway:
Riksarkivet
Pb 4013 Ullevål Stadion,
N-0806 OSLO
The Digital Archives is the internet site for publishing digitised material from the National Archives of Norway. The National Archives of Norway consists of one National Archives and eight Regional State Archives. Sources that are digitised from these archives, either registered into databases or as digital images, are published at http://digitalarkivet.no
Since the Digital Archives was opened (January 1998) we have published more than three thousand databases and an unknown number of digital images. Since mid-November 2005 we are also publishing digitised microfilms of parish registers, currently half a million digital images, but when the project ends in 2008, close to 2 million images will have been published.
There have been 50.8 million page loadings in the Digital Archives last year. We estimate that there are c4000 visitors every day, both Norwegians and foreign visitors (mostly North-Americans).
Anette Skogseth Clausen
Senior Executive Officer
The Digital Archives
tel.: +4755965808
fax: +4755965801
e-mail: digitalarkivet@riksarkivaren.dep.no
The Digital Archives is part of the National Archives of Norway, but when it started in January 1998, it was a co-operation project between the History Department at the University of Bergen and the Regional State Archives of Bergen. Already from the start it was established as a free service for accessing the digitised national census of 1801 along with databases of source material from the State Archives. Very soon it grew to include the censuses of 1865 and 1900 and other digitised archive material, especially parish records and emigration protocols.
Today the Digital Archives is “the Norwegian National Archives' channel for publication of digitised archive material in the form of images, transcribed texts and databases.” (Herstad, John, 2005. http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/cgi-win/WebFront.exe?slag=vis&tekst=introduk-eng.htm&spraak=e). The aim of the Digital Archives is to be the channel for publication of archive material in general, and not only for the National Archives. A small, but important step towards this realisation was taken some years ago, when the Digital Archives introduced the Digital Inn. This is a free service where anyone can submit a database, transcribed text or digital images for publication in the Digital Archives. The submitter might be a private person, registering databases for his/her own use, or a history association, or even an archive institution outside the National Archives. (S)He is responsible for the contribution and holds all the rights to the material, but the contribution must meet certain standards to be accepted. The submitted material is presented as any other database/text/images in the Digital Archives, but with clear copyrights notifications.
While the searchable databases are the main focus and the most important aspect of the Digital Archives, another important feature is the debate forums. They were initially created to stop the overwhelming amount of e-mails the staff received, but it has now grown to be debate forums in which the users of the internet site can discuss any issues related to history, archives and genealogy. Not only do the users receive help and advices from the staff and other users, they may also address the Regional State Archives of Bergen and get help online from the institution. Hopefully, this special service will expand to include the remaining seven State Archives in Norway as well.
The most recent addition to the Digital Archives is the publication of digital images of all the microfilmed parish records in the National Archives. The project started in 2005 so there are still a couple of years before all the microfilmed parish records are found online. But by digitising the microfilm instead of the original parish records, 2 millions pages will be accessible by 2008.
The Digital Archives is very popular among the genealogists in Norway and abroad, but there are also academic interest in this service. Unfortunately, there has not been enough means to accommodate the academic needs to access the data in the Digital Archives. This will be prioritised from 2006, with a redesign of the internet site and new features that hopefully will make it easier for the professionals to exploit the vast amount of information found on the internet site.
Anette Skogseth Clausen
Senior Executive Officer
Spain:
Serrano, 115
28006 MADRID
In the web page of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, www.mcu.es in the Archives Section one will find our presentation page with information of general interest (address, access, opening hours, etc). The documentary information is condensed in the archives depending from the Ministry of Culture under the AER platform (Spanish Archives Online) www.aer.es. This data-base accumulates the descriptive cards supplied by the archivists with the digital image if available. Concerning AHN, the digital images of some collections of relevance can be consulted, like the Document collection of the Indies or of the American Inquisition courts.
Concepción Contel Barea
AHN Director
Almogàvers, 77
08018 BARCELONA
AER (Spanish Archives Online), is the informatic system of the Spanish Ministry of Culture to offer the cultural contents of the Spanish archives, and allow the electronic access through internet (www.aer.es) to the descriptive instruments and to the digitized images of the document collections that the different State Archives have supplied and continue increasing incessantly. Among the archives that feed the above mentioned system there are the Archives of Crown of Aragon (with its seat in the city of Barcelona), one of the richest archives in the world for document collections of the Middle Ages.
In order to enter the system, that is open and free, it is only necessary to identify oneself by means of the form “Alta de usuario” (user information), in which there is to fill up a series of personal and statistical data and to indicate a direction of electronic mail. Among the fields of the mentioned form, the future user must choose a “User name” and a “Password”, that must be remembered, so to write them in the opening page whenever one wishes to enter the system. Once inside, the system allows to make various kinds of research or to accede directly to the inventories and collections of the different archives. In the latter case, one must activate the option “Documentos e imágenes digitalizadas” (digitized documents and images), this discloses the complete list of the archives, among which one will choose what to open. If one activates the option “Archivo de la Corona de Aragón”, the user will be able to enter the diverse computerized inventories and digitized collections of these archives that are already accessible via internet. The different instruments of digital description appear ordered by the various sections in which the archival collections are organized. When one reaches the number of the archival series, an icon with the shape of a camera appears, this means that the digital images of the described documents are accessible online. Therefore one must pass onto the general descriptive cards of the different series and series fractions down to the individual ones of the diverse units that compose them and, once the chosen unit is reached, one must click on the camera-shaped icon. The list of pages that appears on the right side of the screen allows to accede directly to any page of the book or register that one wishes to consult.
Regarding the collections of the Archives of the Crown of Aragon, presently one can consult page by page almost 600 medieval registers of the Royal Chancellery, 160 of modern ages, 250 manuscripts of the collections of the monasteries of Santa Maria de Ripoll, Sant Cugat del Vallès and Real Casa, the archives’ collection of Maps and Plans and some other relevant pieces, such as the famous notary public of the Monastery of Sant Cugat del Vallès, or some trials of medieval courts. Very shortly the number of the registers of the Chancellery accessible through internet will be doubled, and the rest of the manuscripts composing our collections will be added. The digitisation process continues rapidly, reason why within 2006 it will be possible to accede to most of the registers of the Chancellery, and to other collections of particular interest such as the Privilegiorum registers of the Real Audiencia de Cataluña, the series of “Deliberacions” of the Diputación del General, the oldest notarial protocols, all trials of the medieval courts, the inventories of the benedictine monasteries, etc.
Carlos López Rodríguez
Director of the Archives of the Crown of Aragon
Hungary:
The head of the Department of the Hungarian National Archives, Mr Zoltán Garadnai, informs us that one can visit their website www.mol.gov.hu and find information on their collections. Soon he will send us news on the archival digitisation programmes of his institution.