Swiss 'delegation' at 82nd Southwest German Archive Day
The 82nd Southwest German Archive Day "Smart and Intelligent – Digital Aids for Work in the Archive" offered an exciting platform for the presentation of a series of innovative projects and solutions pursuing new approaches in archive work:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Text Recognition
The "OCR-BW" project of the University of Tübingen, which uses AI for automatic text recognition and tagging, was presented. It showed how AI can facilitate indexing work and improve access to archival materials.
Simple Indexing and Access Systems
As part of the "EEZU" project of the State Archives of Baden-Württemberg, it was demonstrated how simple systems can support the work of small archives and facilitate access to their holdings.
Digital Reading Rooms
Lambert Kansy reported on the implementation of the digital reading rooms of the state archives of Basel-Stadt and St. Gallen, which are designed user-oriented to simplify access to archival materials for analogue and digital archival goods.
Streaming Services for Cultural Institutions
The "timms" project of the University of Tübingen, a streaming service for cultural institutions, was presented. It demonstrated how films can be made more accessible and metadata can be effectively used.
Machine Learning and "Creative" AI
Florian Spiess from the University of Basel and Tobias Hodel from the University of Bern presented today's possibilities and challenges of machine learning and "creative" AI in archives and collections. These technologies can simplify and improve accessibility, searchability, and explorative use of holdings (e.g., using "vitrivr", "Archipanion", ChatGPT).
Cooperation in Digital Change
Matthias Razum from FIZ Karlsruhe presented the way that challenges of digital change can be mastered through cooperation and exchange.
"Even the weak become strong when they are united." (Friedrich Schiller)
The presented projects and solutions offer new ways for modernizing the working methods in archives and collections and improving access to their holdings.
So much happening, it stays exciting!
