Adrian Murphy
Europeana Collections Manager , Europeana Foundation
From September to December 2019, Europeana’s ‘Europe at Work’ season encouraged the public to share their work-related stories, and demonstrated that the working world we inhabit today is rich and varied and is the result of a series of technological and societal changes over time.
Involvement in the season helped museums, galleries, libraries and archives across Europe to engage with existing and new audiences, while empowering their digital transformations through participatory events and collaborative storytelling activities.
Here’s a brief look at what we – and you, our partners – achieved together.
24 different cultural heritage organisations and venues, including Europeana aggregators in Italy, Finland and Sweden, ran 12 collection day events in cities, towns and villages in nine different countries: Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden.
The events also included a variety of additional activities such as talks, walking tours, museum open days and Instagram meet-ups.
A total of 182 stories were shared in eight different languages, along with more than 300 objects. The stories, now in the process of being published on Europeana, are about 104 people and their working careers in a variety of industries: from aid-work to accountancy, from childcare to carpentry and from museums to the military.
One Industrial Heritage collection brings together 440,000 digital cultural heritage records from 739 cultural heritage institutions in 36 countries.
In just over three months, 35 blogs and 20 galleries as well as the exhibition Still a Working Title were written and co-produced in close cooperation with more than 20 different organisations. This enormous effort and teamwork meant that many more people engaged with the blog and galleries in 2019 than in previous years (reads of the Europeana blog increased by 75%, and gallery by 62%).
Altogether, the editorial for Europe at Work showcased more than 1,100 cultural heritage objects from more than 240 cultural heritage institutions in 35 countries, including each EU Member State.
Here on Europeana Pro News, we featured 13 posts looking at the digital transformation of work, particularly in the cultural heritage sector.
Top three posts:
Europe at Work: exploring industrial heritage and sharing stories of working life
Industrial heritage and open licensing at the Tekniska museet
Europeana also organised the 2019 edition of GIF IT UP (along with Digital NZ, Digital Public Library of America and Trove) with a special prize category for industrial heritage. The immensely popular annual competition had 186 entries exploring diverse topics and cultural heritage material.
Värmdö kommuns bildarkiv - the photographic archive of a municipality near Stockholm - came to Europeana in October 2019 as part of the Common Culture project via SOCH / Swedish National Heritage Board aggregator. It was remixed to this GIF by Markus Steiger in Zurich, Switzerland as an entry for GIF IT UP 2019.
Throughout the season, a number of striking pieces of art from Europeana Collections depicting industrial activity were shared via renowned and global platform, DailyArt.
Teachers and educators across Europe created upto 10 learning scenarios, all available now in the Teaching with Europeana blog and the Historiana platform. These resources tackle important curricula subjects in Europe, from the industrial revolution and its consequences in our fast-paced technological era, climate change and pollution, to gender inequality in working spaces.
Industrial heritage was the theme of the European's third colouring book for #ColorOurCollections, presenting different forms and shapes of cultural heritage, featuring content from 14 cultural institutions across Europe.
#EuropeAtWork was great. Not only interesting editorials and events, but more: sharing untold stories, supporting education efforts, creative re-use, supporting digital transformation of cultural heritage - contributing in many ways to what @Europeanaeu does #EuropeanaCommunitieshttps://t.co/11HlJtoQEC
— Adrian Murphy (@acediscovery) January 28, 2020
