SAVING UKRAINE'S DIGITAL HISTORY

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V25 2022 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 25, Number 15, April 10, 2022, Article 31

Dennis Tucker forwarded a Washington Post article that bibliophiles and all numismatists should appreciate. Thanks. -Editor

"An inspiring report on librarians and volunteers determined to save Ukraine's cultural and historical archives. Makes me think of the Newman Numismatic Portal, the ANA, the ANS, the Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection, and others who digitize history within the numismatic world."

Buildings, bridges, and monuments aren't the only cultural landmarks vulnerable to war. With the violence well into its second month, the country's digital history — its poems, archives, and pictures — are at risk of being erased as cyberattacks and bombs erode the nation's servers.

Over the past month, a motley group of more than 1,300 librarians, historians, teachers and young children have banded together to save Ukraine's Internet archives, using technology to back up everything from census data to children's poems and Ukrainian basket weaving techniques.

The efforts, dubbed Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online, have resulted in over 2,500 of the country's museums, libraries, and archives being preserved on servers they've rented, eliminating the risk they'll be lost forever. Now, an all-volunteer effort has become a lifeline for cultural officials in Ukraine, who are working with the group to digitize their collections in the event their facilities get destroyed in the war.

The endeavor, experts said, underscores how volunteers, armed with low-cost technology, training and organization can protect a country's history from disasters such as war, hurricanes, earthquakes and fire.

I have not seen anything like it, said Winston Tabb, dean of libraries, archives and museums at Johns Hopkins University. We didn't really have the tools before that made it even possible to undertake this kind of initiative.

In little over a month, volunteers have backed up an exhaustive array of data. According to their website and organizers, volunteers have preserved documents totaling 25 terabytes that include the history of Jewish towns in Ukraine, photographs of excavation sites in Crimea, and digitized exhibitions of Kharkiv's Literary Museum.

The article describes a number of open source digital archiving tools used by the volunteers. The Newman Numismatic Portal backs up its own files in multiple locations and also archives hundreds of numismatic websites through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. In the hands of knowledgeable users, the tools can dive even deeper into multilayer websites and capture a more complete record of the material.

But precious printed material must first be scanned into digital format, a lengthy process that must take place long before the physical material is threatened by disaster. As a consultant to NNP I'm grateful to all the publishers and organizations who've provided material to the Portal. -Editor