In 1915, the Hofbibliothek (or Imperial Library; today known as the Austrian National Library) began to create its war collection. Since it had good links with the library of the Hungarian National Museum, it is not very surprising that the War Collection of the Austrian National Library possesses, amongst other things, 1,135 Hungarian First World War announcements.

The announcements tell us on the one hand about medical examinations, conscription, military drafts, desertion and military successes and on the other hand about life in the provinces.

The text posters from this collection were – like all posters – an important means of propaganda. The texts are strewn with patriotic slogans and phrases and impart a non-critical enthusiasm about the war ignoring its reality and bestiality. In spite of the non-critical patriotic tone,  the posters have a very high informational value and provide a valuable source for information about the First World War.

Please read more about the Hungarian announcements at:

http://blog.europeana.eu/2013/10/hungarian-announcements-from-the-first-world-war/

The British Library has opened a Call for Papers for the conference “Languages and the First World War”. According to the Call for Papers, the  idea for a conference on the linguistic experience and legacy of the war arose from research into the sociolinguistics of the war (especially the Western Front) and the immediate post-war period in the UK Replica Uhren, particularly with reference to how terms had crossed linguistic boundaries, including between hostile linguistic groups.  The conference aims to be truly international and interdisciplinary. The conference will take place on 18, 19 & 20 June 2014.

See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/socialscience/2013/07/wwi.html#sthash.UBUhutYg.dpuf

Europeana’s future funding is threatened, because the digital infrastructures budget under which Europeana was to be funded from 2015 onwards has been slashed from 9 billion euros to 1 billion.  The Europeana Foundation has now published  a petition to keep Europe’s culture open to everyone online. It’s easy to participate and only takes seconds – just follow the link and enter your name and email address.  The petition is available in English, French and German.

#AllezCulture

The completion of the three projects “Europeana Collections 1914-1918”, “EFG1914” and “Europeana 1914-1918” in 2014 offers the opportunity for a presentation and discussion of new digital offerings around the First World War and Europeana. A two-day conference at the Berlin State Library “Unlocking Sources – The First World War online & Europeana” will take the opportunity to discuss the mediation of history online in 2014. The international conference will be jointly organised by the project co-ordinating institutions Berlin State Library, the Department of History at the Humboldt University in Berlin, the German Film Institute – DIF e.V., and the Europeana Foundation. It will address interested scientific audiences and the public.

The Call for Papers – deadline: 15.07.2013 – has been published and is available here.

The National Library of Serbia has recently launched its digital library about the First World War, presenting digitisation results from the Europeana Collections 1914-1918 project. You can access the website at http://velikirat.nb.rs/.Replica Uhren The website is currently available in Serbian language only, but will be translated to English within the next months.

A short update on five collections published on Europeana within the last weeks:

• 348 Objects from the British Library
• 151 objects from the British Library
• 9.553 objects from Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma (Rome National Central Library)
• 22.956 objects from Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma (Rome National Central Library)
• 2.321 objects from Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma (Rome National Central Library)

Please enjoy discovering the new collections on Europeana by clicking the links!

A joint information sheet on the three Europeana projects dealing with the topic of World War One has recently been published and is available for download in high resolution here. The information sheet provides details about the Europeana Collections 1914-1918 project, the European Film Gateway’s EFG1914 project and the Europeana 1914-1918 User Generated Content project as well as contact information.

Why are we doing this? An article giving insight into the motivation to run the Europeana Collections 1914-1918 project “Digitale Gedächtniskultur und europäische Identität – Europeana Collections 1914-1918” (PDF) (German language) Replica Uhren has recently been published from at the Belgian magazine: Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique 82 (2011), 91-101. Enjoy reading!

A first collection of journals and maps provided to Europeana by the Europeana Collections 1914-1918 partner Bibliothèque nationale de France has been published on Europeana now. The collection comprises 3.034 items and is available since 17th of September 2012. Please visit www.europeana.eu.

On May 9th 2012, the European Commission and Europeana had invited Ministers from the Education, Youth and Culture (EYC) Council, senior leaders of European memory organisations and leading figures in the creative industries to raise awareness of Europeana among citizens and to demonstrate that online cultural heritage is a driver for growth.

Each person had the possibility to choose one object from Europeana as national masterpiece.

The Culture Minister of Denmark, Uffe Elbæk presented the photography “Three Russian prisoners of war 1914-1918 in Danish care, thanks to Red Cross” from the Royal Library of Denmark. This object had been provided to Europeana via the Europeana Collections 1914-1918 project!

Please find the essay Uffe Elbæk wrote on the relevance of the photography for Danish history here.

You can also visit the complete list of all other chosen masterpieces.