Digital community archives – selected examples

Abstract

The text starts with deliberations on understanding the term „digital community archive”; the author presents an open catalogue of levels and types of digitization that occur in grassroots documenting initiatives, which shows complexity of the matter. In its next part the article shows a short description of the ways archival materials are presented on-line by following community archives: the KARTA Center, Topographies – Association of Citizen Initiatives in Łódź (Miastograf – Digital Archive of Łódź) and Archive and Museum of Polish Pre-war Students’ Associations. In this article the author stresses the unsatisfying manner of archival description put on the Internet by such initiatives, and at the same time – the high value of these materials. She puts more research questions on the subject: what happens to historical sources when a grassroots initiative ceases to exist? What is the place of grassroots digitizing initiatives that possess no original archival materials, but only copies?