The Total Digital Access to the League of Nations Archives Project, or LONTAD is a grant-funded large-scale digitization project to digitize, preserve, and provide online access to the
archives
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
of the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
. Its fundamental aim is to modernize access to the archives for researchers, education institutions, and the general public. The project will result in 250
terabyte
The byte is a units of information, unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character (computing), character of text in a computer and for this ...
s of data (nearly 30 million digital files), over 500,000 units of descriptive
metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
, and the rehousing, preservation and conservation of the physical archives (nearly 3 linear kilometers). The project is managed by the Institutional Memory Section (IMS) of the Library of the
United Nations Office at Geneva
The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG, french: Office des Nations Unies à Genève) in Geneva, Switzerland, is one of the four major offices of the United Nations where numerous different UN agencies have a joint presence. The main UNOG ...
.
Launched in 2017, it is scheduled for completion in 2022.
League of Nations archives
The League of Nations archives consists of approximately 15 million pages of content dating from the inception of the League of Nations in 1919 extending through its dissolution, which commenced in 1946.
The collection is housed at the United Nations Office at Geneva, and is considered to be a historical collection of the United Nations Archives at Geneva.
Project operations
Within the focus of digitization,
digital
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
and physical preservation, and online access, the project is divided into the three major operations: Pre-digitization, Scanning, and Post-digitization. Each component includes its own specialized team.
Pre-digitization
![Archives Reading Room detail](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Archives_Reading_Room_detail.jpg)
Pre-digitization activities are primarily concentrated on physical preparation and
preservation treatment. The Pre-digitization Team performs repairs and stabilization of torn paper, secures materials in preservation enclosures to ensure their longer-term stabilization, and isolates any photographs with photo-safe preservation paper. The archives are then sorted, ordered, and indexed according to project standards, and inventoried in the archives management system.
Scanning
LONTAD works closely with an external specialized company for scanning. Overhead scanners designed for
cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...
digitization are used. Both a master file (
JPEG-2000
JPEG 2000 (JP2) is an image compression standard and coding system. It was developed from 1997 to 2000 by a Joint Photographic Experts Group committee chaired by Touradj Ebrahimi (later the JPEG president), with the intention of superseding the ...
format) and an access file (PDF) processed with
OCR are produced and delivered to the Post-digitization Team.
Post-digitization
Post-digitization activities are primarily centralized on quality control and metadata creation. The Post-digitization Team performs quality control on scanned images. Physical quality control is also performed on a sample of materials in order to ensure long-term preservation.
Metadata creation consists of archival description and indexing. The descriptive metadata generated serves as the key component to providing access to the digital collection. The Post-digitization Team also works to standardize and document description processes, and uses the
MoSCoW method
The MoSCoW method is a prioritization technique used in management, business analysis, project management, and software development to reach a common understanding with stakeholders on the importance they place on the delivery of each requireme ...
for quality control and metadata correction.
The Post-digitization Team ensures online publishing to the digital access system, ingests the digital files to the digital preservation system, and coordinates some of the project outreach functions, such as Twitter and the project mascot Lontadinho.
Research objectives
The LONTAD project aims to make the League of Nations archives more accessible to researchers. It seeks to do this in the framework of three research objectives: mobilizing knowledge and providing global access; providing uniform and complete access via archival description that is
ISAD(G) ISAD(G) (General International Standard Archival Description) defines the elements that should be included in an archival finding aid. It was approved by the International Council on Archives (ICA/CIA) as an international framework standard to regis ...
compliant; and, through providing new pathways for analysis, particularly in the scope of the
digital humanities
Digital humanities (DH) is an area of scholarly activity at the intersection of computing or Information technology, digital technologies and the disciplines of the humanities. It includes the systematic use of digital resources in the humanitie ...
.
See also
*
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
Organisation of the League of Nations The League of Nations was established with three main constitutional organs: the Assembly; the Council; the Permanent Secretariat. The two essential wings of the League were the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Labour ...
*
Venice Time Machine
The Venice Time Machine is a large international project launched by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Ca' Foscari University of Venice in 2012 that aims to build a collaborative multidimensional model of Venice by cre ...
*
World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress.
The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume ...
External links
*
Twitter
References
{{Reflist
Online archives
Digital humanities
Digital libraries
Digital preservation
League of Nations
League of Nations-related lists
Mass digitization
Projects established in 2017
Records management