Cultural heritage and AI come together at Transcribathon Zagreb 2022

Involvement in Enrich Europeana+ 

The State Archives in Zagreb care for the documentary and archival materials that were created in the city of Zagreb, Zagreb County as well as for part of the County Krapinsko-Zagorska (towns Donja Stubica and Oroslavje and the municipalities of Gornja Stubica, Marija Bistrica and Stubičke Toplice) in Croatia. The rich materials stored in the archive are mostly handwritten, and range from the 13th century to recent history. 

There are more than 10,000 due metres of materials spread through more than 1,300 archival fonds and collections in the State Archives. This makes it challenging for researchers, educators and curious citizens to know whose archival funds we hold. This was an issue that we aimed to address through our participation in the Enrich Europeana+ project. 

Through the project, we wanted to present a more comprehensive overview of our archives and collections to a larger audience. The State Archives in Zagreb is one of the biggest content providers in this project, and we aim to provide more than 120,000 new records to Europeana. Those materials are a part of eight different archival funds and collections. The most considerable number of records come from the archival fond HR-DAZG-24 Zagreb City Administration, more precisely, the ration cards that were issued in Zagreb during WW2 to regulate food distribution, which number around 120,000 individual cards. 

Working with the Croatian national aggregator, Ekultura

The State Archives in Zagreb was also the first cultural heritage institution in Croatia to use the Croatian national aggregator Ekultura to deliver these materials to Europeana. For every single fond and collection, a new set of metadata was constructed to provide the data. This was a significant step, because before the establishment of Ekultura, and engagement in the Enrich Europeana+ project, the State Archives in Zagreb didn't produce metadata in such a structured, machine-readable form. 

Ekultura was established by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and media as part of the ‘e-Culture - Digitization of cultural heritage’ project. The project includes the establishment of a central information system for permanent digital storage and preservation of digital and digitised cultural heritage from museums, archives, libraries and other heritage institutions. The aggregator plans a crucial role in preserving and promoting cultural heritage, collecting and organising information from multiple sources to make cultural heritage more accessible, searchable, and understandable. It offers cultural heritage institutions two main services– integration with the national aggregator and integration with Europeana - which the State Archives of Zagreb used for this project. 

Organising Transcribathon Zagreb 2022 

Through the project, in November 2022 we also organised a ‘Transcribathon’ event, to engage audiences in the materials that we were providing to Europeana. Preparations were quite exciting. None of our employees had ever done an event of this type, so we relied on the help and experience of our project partners, especially from the Transcribathon and Europeana teams.

The event took place from 7 - 11 November, at the Faculty of Humanities and Social sciences in Zagreb (the State Archives in Zagreb is under renovation and restoration after the earthquake in 2020). 

We focused on getting university students involved in the Transcribathon because we were on their grounds. Two weeks before the event, we held two 45-minute presentations for the students from the Department of Information and Communication Sciences. The presentation contained information about the Transcribathon platform, the Enrich Europeana+ project, and about the materials and the work that needed to be done. Students applied to take part through an online form and in total 52 signed up.  To simplify the process of transcribing, we translated the instructions for Transcribathon to Croatian, and designed a dedicated landing page for the Zagreb event on the Transcribathon platform.

In total, 431 documents were started during the event with 356,552 characters transcribed by 45 volunteers. Leading participants then gave presentations on their work, which were judged by professors from the faculty and State Archives in Zagreb. They decided on the winners, as well as the second and third places, in three different categories: the largest number of transcriptions (winner Eva Vitković), enrichments (winner Marijeta Ćubrić), and the presentation (winner Tena Matićević). The prizes for the winners included a collection of books, tickets to the chocolate museum and tickets for an escape room.

A transcribathon with a twist 

Transcribathon Zagreb 2022 had a special addition at the beginning of the run. We organised a two-day conference ‘Cultural heritage and AI : Transcribathon Zagreb’, which invited lecturers to share their knowledge and experiences with more than 80 attendees from 20 different cultural heritage institutions from the region (there were representatives even from a theatre and the Veterinary faculty). The lectures were focused on the new Croatian national aggregator, the possibilities of including AI in everyday work, and examples of good practices in Croatian archives. The conference set the wheels in motion. We already received a few queries about how to join the Transcribathon platform, and the Transkribus platform as well as how to take part in any future projects with our institution and/or Europeana.

Get involved

We invite you all to continue transcribing our materials on the Transribathon platform to help us unlock the stories of the past. If you are interested in running a Transcribathon in your own institution, please contact [email protected].