Practice with Digital Editions and Electronic Finding Aids

In collaboration with organizations working on access to digitized souces, projects like TKR and eRQZH are building new, digital finding aids and user-friendly access options that are search- and location-independent.

In the following exercises, you will become familiar with the possibilities and challenges of using online sources using the example of the TKR-Project from the Staatsarchiv Zürich in comparison with more “traditional” means of finding sources like the electronic finding aid Query from scopeArchiv.

Archives have been working on new ways of preserving, processing, and safeguarding archival materials, ones that are based on new techonological possibilities and user expectations that they can easily access archival collections regardless of location. At the same time, new platforms are being developed to guarantee ongoing use of archival collections.

Thus, archival materials and their “tradition” forms of reproduction, like microfilm and conventional facsimiles, now exist alongside newer forms of reporduction and types of editions. The spectrum goes from the retro-digitalization of analog sources, such as the Bundesarchiv’s “Digital Government Documents since 1848,” to digital editions like “Transcription and Digitization of the Cantonal Records and Government Decisions since 1803” (Project TKR) and the “Digital Edition of Legal Sources from Zürich” (Project eRQZH) from the Staatsarchiv Zürich.