Citizen Archive Project: Citizen participation and digitization of small Archive

Results of the Citizen Archive Project: Citizen Participation in Archiving

The Citizen Archive Project , led by Paul Perschke and Dr. Rita Gudermann at the Leibniz Institute for Spatial Social Research (IRS) , developed a process for indexing and publishing Archive through citizen participation . In cooperation with the Programmfabrik and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK), the project enabled the digitization of archive holdings from smaller Archive , which often have insufficient resources.

Citizen participation and modern technologies

At the beginning of the project, citizen participation took place via the Zooniverse , where volunteers helped historical archives . Subsequently, a specially developed platform was integrated into the IRS online platform , which enables citizens to participate directly in the development and digitization.

Central to the technical implementation was the use of fylr , a digital asset Management solution that took over the organization and management of the digitized archives. Another highlight of the project was the IRS AI-Validator , an AI-supported plugin that checked the quality of the submitted content and dam ensured reliable analysis and indexing.

Innovative solutions and results

The Citizen Archive project led to the development of an open knowledge and communication platform . The platform combines citizen science approaches with artificial intelligence (AI) and semantic web technologies enable the efficient and high-quality digitization of inventories This combination allows Archive not only to make their holdings digitally accessible, but also to promote collaboration with volunteers worldwide.

Conclusion: A model for the future of archival work

The Citizen Archive project impressively shows how citizen participation and modern technologies can sustainably advance development and digitization of cultural assets It offers a blueprint for the future of small Archive that have limited resources but can still access and preserve their holdings through innovative approaches.

More Info access to the project pages can be found here: Results of the Citizen Archive Project .