Monthly Archives: November 2025

The Citizen Archive Platform: Interview with Wolfram Dornik

Interview with the head of the Graz City Archives, Dr. Wolfram Dornik, about the Citizen Archive Platform (https://citizenarchive.eu/en/), a collaborative personal digital archiving platform spearhead by the Graz City Archives (Austria) and the Aschaffenburg City and Abbey Archives (Germany), co-funded by the EU.

1) What prompted the development of the Citizen Archive Platform (CAP)?

We have been pursuing a holistic approach to preservation for several years: We aim to preserve urban history in both analog and digital form, not only based on official documents, but also based on documents and collections from private individuals, associations, and businesses. The catalyst for our project was our experience with collecting during the 2020/21 coronavirus pandemic, which highlighted the difficulties with preserving data from private individuals. That’s why we explored innovative technical and archival strategies and tools.

2) Could you briefly describe the most important functions of CAP?

The tool enables the secure transfer of data from private individuals to an archive, based on archival standards. At the same time, the platform supports professional archivists with managing the digital submission workflow while preparing the transfer to a digital repository – or the de-accessioning of data.

3) How did the collaboration between the Graz City Archives and the Aschaffenburg City and Abbey Archives come about?

Joachim Kemper (Dr. Joachim Kemper, the head of the Aschaffenburg City and Abbey Archives) and I have known each other for several years and we share similar approaches to our work. At the Graz City Archives, which is run jointly with the Graz Museum in a single organizational unit and headed by Director Sibylle Dienesch, we pursue a similarly open and participatory approach to archiving. So, joining forces with Aschaffenburg seemed almost logical for our project.

4) Can anyone download and use the platform?

Yes, the platform will be made available on GitHub at the end of the project is available under an open license. It can be downloaded, used, and further developed by any archive or other cultural heritage institution. Of course, we would also be very happy to receive feedback or reports on experiences from other users.

5) Do you plan to expand CAP further and do you also plan to release versions in other languages?

 Other language versions in English, French, Italian, and Greek are already being developed for the EU project. Technically, this is quite easy to implement, and other institutions can, of course, customize the language and content individually for themselves.  

6) Do you offer training, and is there already an online user community that people can turn to with questions?

During the project period, i.e. until the end of January 2026, this option will of course still be available. We are currently working out to what extent we will be able to provide support for new users after the end of the project. In any case, we will continue to support users in Graz over the next few years and will operate the platform together with the museum collection.

7) Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

After almost four years, we are thrilled to see the enthusiasm of the people of Graz for this topic. As an archive, we can fully leverage our expertise in the long-term preservation of cultural heritage, now in digital form. At the same time, we have also acquired more skills, technical know-how, and an even broader network for taking on personal documents in both spheres—digital and analog.

You can access the CAP at: https://citizenarchive.eu/en/

Thank you very much for this interview!

 Translated with the help of AI, revised and adjusted by Katharina Hering

Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst …with Lauren Rever

Can you describe your project in three sentences and explain the digital component of your work?

Each year, hundreds of thousands of American school children visit Washington, DC on overnight trips as part of their school’s curriculum. My project examines the historical development of the school trip to Washington, DC as a heritage practice. Beyond a traditional history, I read narratives of trips in yearbooks, brochures, school websites, personal diaries, and newspapers and turn the information into data: which schools traveled? Where from? What was the group size? What sites did they visit once in DC? Using digital methods then allows me to interpret the spatial meanings of the trip, map the routes on georeferenced historical maps, and visualize a narrative for audiences in ArcGIS StoryMaps.

Screenshot of StoryMap
Example of Rever’s StoryMap

 

Added value: What was only possible or what advantages did you have because you worked digitally?

Turning narratives into data captured information that I couldn’t see clearly otherwise, such as the amount of student groups traveling by rail until the early 2000s. At the final stage of my project, using ArcGIS StoryMaps gave me the advantage of showing an audience how the school trip developed not only across time but also across space. Visualizing this emphasizes my arguments that space was an essential factor in institutionalizing trips to the federal city and that routes are an essential factor in how various authorities make history using Washington.

Map of Hatfield Consolidated High School Trip to Washington, DC 1925
Map of Hatfield Consolidated High School Trip to Washington, DC 1925. By Lauren Rever. Rand McNally Standard Map of Washington D.C., 1923, Library of Congress.

 

Had you worked with digital methods before?

I had not worked with digital methods before! My background is in material culture, public history, and historical interpretation. My training gave me the interpersonal skills to discuss history and heritage sites with various publics. Digital methods seemed very “behind the scenes” to me. In that sense, I took data and information science for granted in our public collecting institutions. I am much more aware of the benefits of digital methods because of my time at the GHI and Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, especially with regards how digitality is a vital aspect of our workplaces.

What triggered your decision to embark on a digital project?

I had manually collected data for part of my dissertation from 100 contemporary school trips, representing two trips per state. I plotted the top-visited sites on a contemporary map with the help of a colleague cartographer. The end result showed me details that I hadn’t seen before, such as how popular of a site Arlington National Cemetery was. I saw an opportunity to pursue this work further in my postdoctoral project.

Digital projects are known for a steep learning curve. What are five tips you would like to give to your younger self? What do you wish you had known, what would you have done differently, what turned out to be eye-opening for you?

  1. Know when to say no. There are so many topics that fall under the umbrella of “digital history” that you could fill your entire work calendar investigating new and interesting conferences, seminars, and meetings. Learning is great. But at some point, you need to say no and focus on what you can produce with the little bits you have. Go from there – there will always be more to expand upon later!
  2. Think a little deeper about which the digital projects are behind-the-scenes research work, and which are public-facing work. I first considered the maps I was making as a public-facing tool to visualize my research. I realized after a while that the maps I made weren’t particularly helpful in explaining my argument, especially because the routes I map are rather static, geocoordinates-wise. The maps were, however, extremely important for my internal research and learning. In the end, I had to switch plans for visualizing the project for an audience. Finally understanding my maps as a tool for just myself, however, relieved the pressure to spend lots of time making the maps look appealing.
  3. Don’t compare yourself to major projects.  Just as a PhD student cannot compare their dissertation to a tenured professor’s book, a single digital humanist cannot compare themselves to established projects. Many digital humanists do not work alone, have many years of experience, and partner with data scientists. I can measure my personal progress on my own terms. When I opened up a new software and recognized the terminology for how to navigate it, for example, I felt really accomplished.
  4. Ask peers details about their jobs. The field of digital history encompasses a broad range of jobs. Asking peers about their daily tasks and job titles is a great chance for informal learning in the field. It provides a chance to see where the practical demands are, talk through what skills you may already have but need to phrase differently to match DH language, and hear how people ended up in their positions.
  5. Remind yourself of your unique skillset. It is easy to feel behind when you are joining a field others have years of experience in. But that means you’ve spent your years mastering other skills, and your project will allow those to shine through as well!

Lauren Rever is a public historian who turns the lens inward onto the field to study the production of history, museum histories, memory, and tourism. She was the 2024/2025 Gerda-Henkel-Foundation scholarship recipient for Digital History at GHI Washington and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. Her doctoral thesis, which she completed in the fall of 2024 at Heidelberg University, examined the complex relationship between authority and trust in the management and visits to historical institutions in Washington, D.C. Her current postdoctoral project documents the history of student travel to Washington, DC.

Die Blogreihe „Hätte ich das mal eher gewusst … Was Historiker:innen und historisch arbeitende ihrem jüngeren Ich raten würden“ wird betreut durch das GHI Washington in Kooperation mit NFDI4Memory / Task Area Data Culture, dem Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands (VHD) und der Digital History Professur der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Wir freuen uns über alle, die offen über ihre Erfahrungen mit digitalen Projekten im Geschichtsbereich sprechen möchten – und Tipps geben, was sie auf jeden Fall beim nächsten Mal anders machen würden.

Sie haben / Du hast auch Interesse, einen Beitrag für die Reihe zu schreiben? Gerne! Christiane Weber (VHD/NFDI4Memory) [weber@historikerverband.de] und Katharina Hering (GHI) [hering@ghi-dc.org] freuen sich auf eine Email.