Ewa Majdecka
Ewa Majdecka – sociologist, researcher and manager of digital products. At the Center of Community Archives, he manages the Digital Tools Development Department, which maintains and develops the Open Archiving System, including the Community Collections portal.
Session
Digital or digitised cultural heritage may already seem like something obvious, thanks to decades of effort from GLAM institutions. And, thanks to human creativity and the development of technology, we can explore this cultural heritage in new ways.
But does this heritage also represent its true diversity? Cultural institutions play an extremely valuable role in preserving and curating collections. However, not all stories and communities fall within this framework. The stories of many communities, events, and places would have never been told if it weren't for the passion and engagement of hundreds of individuals and groups that form the community archives movement - outside of big heritage institutions.
At the Center of Community Archives, we support communities to tell their stories, in their own language and through sources that matter to them. The Community Collections portal allows these sources to be preserved and showcased and grassroots, personal stories curated by the communities to which they relate.
We try to make people care about people and the stories distributed in hundreds of communities across the whole country by making the Open Archiving System and Community Collections portal available. These tools are part of our supporting system for community archivists in order to make them independent in presenting their history widely.
This presentation will present the journey from personal letters, photos from school trips, oral history or local poets' poems to the public in a way that would matter also to outside and bigger communities.