URN_NBN_SI_doc-EKLLCHTW

42 Š. Ledinek Lozej, M. Peče: Connecting Local Cultural Heritage Collections with ICT: the Case of ZBORZBIRK , 41–57 Library, 58 (2014) 3 Izvirnost/uporabnost raziskave : ZBORZBIRK je eden prvih projektov na italijansko-slovenskem območju, ki povezuje neinstitucionalne zbirke in zbiratelje s strokovnjaki ter je ob rastočem lju- biteljskem zbirateljstvu lahko zgled za primerljive bodoče projekte. Ključne besede: zbirke kulturne dediščine, zbirateljstvo, informacijske tehnologije, digitalna huma- nistika, čezmejno območje, čezmejno sodelovanje Abstract Purpose: The article discusses the digitisation and inventory of 34 local cultural heritage collec- tions in the border region between the Alps and the Karst, and the establishment of a network of owners, guardians of collections and professionals from the field of museology, ethnology, digital humanities and informatics. Methodology/approach: In the framework of the project “ZBORZBIRK – Cultural heritage be- tween the Alps and the Karst” 34 collections of cultural heritage of different type and contents, until then inaccessible to the general public and experts, were catalogued, contextualised and presented to the general and expert public in different media and on the project website. Results: A unified repository with metadata on objects (units) was established containing also digital photographs and scans of images and textual objects (digital objects). There are 4583 units and 5190 digital objects in the repository. It is designed for researchers, experts and stu- dents from the fields of ethnology, cultural anthropology, history, linguistics as well for the gen- eral public, and above all to achieve greater recognisability of the region. Research limitation: The research and the results were limited by the material itself, i.e. the col- lections included into the project, as well as by different aspirations of collectors and various levels of specialised skills of registrars and recorders who documented and digitised the units and entered the data in the metadata database. The project addresses a wide scope of potential users thus the implementation of different solu- tions gave rise to the conflict of interests among target groups. The question was whether it should serve as a virtual museum or as a research archival repository. More attention was fo- cused on archival and research standards than on presentation technologies. Originality/practical implications: The project ZBORZBIRK is one of the first projects in the Ital- ian and Slovenian cross-border region which links non-institutional collections and collectors with experts. The collaborative approach, use of information and communication technologies to enhance various parts of processes, and growing phenomena of local collections and ama- teur collecting could be taken as an example of good praxis for comparable follow-up projects. Keywords: collections of cultural heritage, collecting, digital humanities, information technology, cross-border region, cross border cooperation