The Digital Network for Collections supports Berlin’s university collections in their digital projects. Part of this support involves exploring new ways to make the collections’ holdings digitally available for teaching and research, and to interested members of the public.
We see these explorations as a creative process through which we contribute our expertise and work together with our colleagues in the collections to find solutions. Those responsible for the collections are the ones most familiar with their requirements and needs, and those with the necessary disciplinary expertise. The Digital Network for Collections team strives to derive solutions from individual projects that are of general interest to the collection community.
In order to stimulate discussion about requirements and solutions and to make our collaborations transparent, we publish our experiments, tools, and demonstrators. These should be viewed as works in progress, and we welcome feedback and suggestions for further development.
Presenting and Cataloguing Collection Objects
Wikidata-based subject cataloguing of teaching images
This demonstrator explores new ways to use reference data—in this case Wikidata IDs—to better catalogue collection objects.
Presentation of results from a pilot project to digitize the TU Berlin’s Mineralogical Collections
We are offering collections that do not maintain their own object databases or document their objects in specialized portals the use of our platform to present their collections. We are exploring how this can best be achieved conceptually and technically based on the results of a pilot project to digitize part of the Keller Mineralogical Collections at the TU Berlin. This demonstrator is currently in an early test phase.
Demonstrator for the Presentation of 3D digitized objects
Using five cylinder seals from the collection of the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at the FU Berlin as an example, we are investigating how the interaction between object presentation and the visualization of 3D models in a viewer can be achieved with minimal infrastructure requirements. The aim is to make the full functionality of the advanced 3D viewer developed by the Central Institute for 3D Technologies (ZE3D) at the TU Berlin available for collections to present their objects without having to host the viewer themselves or integrate it into their own websites.
Information on the 3D digitization of university collection objects by ZE3D
Digital Finding Aid for Berlin-Brandenburg Office for Everyday Culture
Presently, efforts are being made to facilitate public and researcher access to these holdings. The digital finding aid offers a comprehensive overview of the archive’s structure and includes annotations regarding its archival materials.
The documented version of the finding aid is a working version that is continuously being revised and supplemented.
Inquiries regarding content should be directed to Dr. Jonas Tinius at the Institute for European Ethnology.