Linking: Reconnecting the Past
Sigal Arie-Erez
Archives, Yad Vashem
Eva/ Minerva XIIth Annual International Conference
Jerusalem, November 9th, 2016

Archival Materials Have a Life of Their Own
They wander
They scatter
move from one place,
just to turn up in other places

Archival Materials Have a Life of Their Own
Ringelblum Archive

The Auschwitz Album

The Auschwitz Album

The Auschwitz Album

The Auschwitz Album

The Auschwitz Album

The Auschwitz Album

The Auschwitz Album

The Task
• To identify scattered collections
• To unite them virtually in one location

Types of Relations in the EHRI Portal
Partially duplicated
(Part of)
Complementary
Identical (Same as)

Originals and Copies
• Contribute to a deeper understanding of historical
materials and historical processes
• Making the linkage between collections suggests a
whole new field of data, relations and leads
• Reveal the provenance of the material - the corner
stone of research
• Enhanced credibility and authenticity of the database
Linking between collections is important

Rethink Basic Principles in Archival Science
• Respect the Fonds
• Why do we need multiple descriptions?
• The story behind the material is important too

Rethink Basic Principles in Archival Science
• Different descriptions have their own merits
• Echo the history of organizations, institutional & cultural
agenda
• Finding aids
• Cataloguing is subjective
• Multiple descriptions provide additional perspectives
It is important to research the relations
between collections as well as their metadata

Interactions Between Archiving and Technology
Automated methods need to be augmented with
archival knowledge
• Identify the types of links and map them
• Set a methodology
• The same data was encoded in different fields, of different
institutions.
• Content analysis using machine learning technics
• The Creator is important
• We need to improve the metadata
• How institutions should export their data

Cooperation Across Institutions and Implications
• A joint discussion and collective learning
• A change in work methods & efficiency
• Cataloguing in a more standardized manner
• Invest more in the descriptions on the collection level
• Pay more attention to the creator field
Strive toward deeper data sharing

In Conclusion
The EHRI project of linking:
one step further in
exploring & understanding
the relations between various collections

NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NL)
CEGESOMA Centre for Historical Research and Documentation
on War and Contemporary Society (BE)
Jewish Museum in Prague (CZ)
Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for
Contemporary History in Munich (DE)
YAD VASHEM The Holocaust Martyrs’ and
Heroes’ Remembrance Authority (IL)
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USA)
Bundesarchiv (DE)
The Wiener Library Institute for the Study of
the Holocaust & Genocide (UK)
Holocaust Documentation Centre (SK)
Polish Center for Holocaust Research (PL)
The Jewish Museum of Greece (GR)
Jewish Historical Institute (PL)
King’s College London (UK)
Ontotext AD (BG)
Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust
in Romania (RO)
DANS Data Archiving and Networked Services (NL)
Shoah Memorial, Museum, Center for Contemporary
Jewish Documentation (FR)
ITS International Tracing Service (DE)
Hungarian Jewish Archives (HU)
INRIA Institute for Research in Computer Science and
Automation (FR)
Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum (LT)
VWI Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (AT)
Foundation Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center (IT)
EHRI is funded by
the European Union