Europeana Generic Services Projects Meeting, 29-30 October 2018, The Hague Renata Solar - Rise of Literacy

1. Rise of Literacy in Europe
Thematic Collection
01/ 09/2017- 28/02/2019
Renata Šolar
National and University Library, Slovenia

3. Aims of the Project
- to create a thematic collecion by aggregating rich textual materials from European cultural heritage
organizations (libraries)
- medieval manuscripts from the 4th to 15th century, printed books and other printed materials
dating from the early 16th century till the end of 19th century, and journals and newspapers from
the 18th century to mid-20th century
- the main European languages including Romance, Germanic, Nordic, Slavic, Celtic and Hellenic
- the development of written European languages (grammars, dictionaries, text books) and
vernacular literacy among the different social classes together with the evolution of languages in
different formats and genres (manuals, travel literature, children’s books, folk tales etc.)

4. Activities timetable
Activity
number
Activity title Indicative
start date
Indicative
end date
Milestone
number
Status
1 Selection 01/09/2017 28/02/2018 1 Finished
2 Digitisation 01/01/2018 30/06/2018
postponed
31/10/2018
2 In progress
3 Processing 01/01/2018 31/10/2018
postponed
31/12/2018
3 In progress
4 Curation 01/09/2017 28/02/2019 4 In progress
5 Project
management and communication
01/09/2017 28/02/2019 6 In progress
6 Sustainability and impact 01/02/2018 31/01/2019 5 In progress

5. Selection
-the partners identified objects that serve as the basis for the thematic collections and editorial, as well
as identified objects already on Europeana and their specific needs for improvement; they have also
listed the objects that are digitised but not yet on Europeana and objects to be digitised; to support the
work of partners in cataloguing and delivering these objects, the list of vocabularies used at Europeana
was shared and partners were strongly encouraged to use this if possible
Digitisation and processing
– the digitisation plan has been finished; the quality of digitisation is Tier 2 or above of the EPF;
descriptive metadata according to the institutional standards and the quality measurements of Europeana
are prepared; all metadata will be mapped, transformed and exported to the EDM to enable ingestion into
Europeana

6. Curation
There are three core outputs of the Rise of Literacy project:
1) Rise of Literacy editorial
The purpose of the curated editorial is to reflect how reading and writing have evolved and developed across Europe (and where
content exists, placing this in a wider global context). In order to streamline the large amount of information contained in the existing
and soon to be ingested textual collections on Europeana, more than 30 curated features are and will be developed:
- two online exhibitions (Exhibition 1: the Rise of Literacy in Europe, Exhibition 2: The transition from handwritten to printed texts)
- a number of blogpost series dedicated to wider themes (e.g. Europe without borders, Journeys of books, Libraries and literacy,
Literacy as a skill, etc.) ;
- free standing blogs highlighting images and/or objects on a specific theme and be written in a simple and engaging way (e.g.
Alphabets in Europe, First dictionaries, Propaganda and censorship, Presentation of the news and significant world events,
Advertising, etc.) ; and
- galleries of the visually most appealing content (e.g. Font development, Early illustrations, Reading over time etc.)
2) Manuscript thematic collection (launched in May 2018)
Brings together high quality resources and making them available through a single entry point with a friendly search/browse
interface and represents a reference point both for researchers and for the wider public
3) Newspaper thematic collection (will be launched in December 2018)
Providing access to around 10 million fully searchable pages of digital historical newspaper content from 11 libraries in Europe, it
forms one of the largest collections of Europe’s historical newspapers currently available online; being of tremendous value to
a broad community of users, and can help enable new ways of research and education as well as support the further standardisation
and adoption of best practices for the large-scale digitisation and online presentation of historical newspapers in Europeana

7. Future of the thematic collections
• After the project concludes at the end of February 2019, editorials will continue to be
regularly published and promoted via Europeana channels and by partners; once the
galleries, exhibitions and blogs are online, they will remain available and can be highlighted
in different ways after their publication, e.g. gallery of the week
• Europeana Manuscript Collection - European Open Science Cloud; different scientific
communities to share data and metadata across disciplines and platforms
• Europeana Newspapers - the collection will support capacity building and the further
harmonisation and interoperability of digital historical newspaper collections on the
European (and international) level; the adoption of best practices established by Europeana
Newspapers will lead to more libraries joining the network and further digitised newspaper
content becoming available for aggregation into the Europeana platform

8. Outcomes of the project
-, approximately 1,500 manuscripts, 2,600 books and other print materials (pamphlets, postcards,
flyers, booklets), and more than 200,000 pages of newspapers and magazines will have been
digitized
- all digitized items will be accessible via the Europeana platform, thereby increasing the reach
and relevance of European cultural heritage resources to users in Europe and beyond. Moreover,
the project will increase the pan-European reach of Europeana by bringing together and co-
curating, for the first time, the collections of 12 important European institutions that hold these
relevant collections
- the thematic collection will encourage the pan-European use of cultural material by curating and
adding objects to the Europeana platform that are re-usable by third parties for non-commercial
(NC) purposes and/or that are completely open

9. Impacts
Six primary stakeholders who will benefit of the project: researcher, cultural lover, educator, creative,
librarian and policy maker
How:
• Europeana is widely known as a leading resource for researchers
• Digital cultural heritage is used more in the classroom and improves the learning experiences of
students
• Digital cultural heritage contributes to innovation in creative practice and to economic development
via the inspiration for new applications and products
• Increased interest from libraries in making more of their textual content through partnership
working
• Additional funding (policy level) for digitisation and collaboration at a national level
• Additional support/buy-in from top-level in institutions for involvement in pan-European
collaborations
• Libraries benefit from using the infrastructure and services provided by Europeana
• Policy makers promote the benefits of working at a pan-European level
• Rise of Literacy is used as a model for future project (content) collaborations
• Libraries are more active partners in digitisation and provision of content to Europeana

10. •Expanding European creative and
engaged knowledge society