EEZU

In Germany, archival sources are distributed among a large number of different institutions. Access to these sources often poses considerable challenges to researchers. In particular, small, very small, and medium-sized archives often lack the necessary IT infrastructure for the digital recording and management as well as online access to their holdings.

The EEZU project is intended to enable archives to digitally record finding aids, manage digitized material and offer both via portals like DDB and Archivportal-D and, in the future, via Europeana and Archives Portal Europe for scientific use .

With the EEZU project, the states archives of Baden-Württemberg plan to develop a web-based, intuitive software for the acquisition and presentation of indexing information and digitized data.

The focus is on a simple, EAD(DDB)-based indexing component and a fixed export in EAD(DDB) format. The focus is also on the support of digitized material, provided via an access platform (delivery of digitized material in different resolutions) and an interface to long-term preservation or long-term archiving systems (e.g., DIMAG or RADAR). In addition, EEZU improves the interoperability of the created finding aids by assigning persistent identifiers and extensive support in enriching the indexing information with standard data identifiers.

The e-Research unit will develop these core tasks in close collaboration with the partners.

The Information Service Engineering unit develops a semi-automated procedure to enrich the indexing information with identifiers from the common standard file GND (Gemeinsame Normdatei). Such procedures are developed within the scope of the DFG-funded project “Development of an infrastructure for implementing subject-related points of access within Archivportal-D on the example of the subject area ’Weimarer Republik’“ but will have to be generalized for  EEZU.
In the end, EEZU will be made available as open source software. In addition, FIZ Karlsruhe will offer a hosted chargeable service, based on the open source software developed.

• Project term: 01.02.2021 – 31.01.2024
• Sponsor: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
• Project partner: LABW- Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg (state archives of Baden-Württemberg)