Virtual Cellar of the Estonian Literary Museum: the Challenges of the Open Access in the Digital Era

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Posters, Demos and Developer "How-To's"

Estonian Literary Museum (ELM) was compiled in 1940 by Soviet authorities on the basis of four former archives forming part of the Estonian National Museum: Estonian Cultural History Archives, Estonian Folklore Archives, Archival Library, and the Estonian Bibliography Institution. Nowadays ELM is a state research institution combining various research groups and archives. The systematic digitization of the collections of the ELM started in 1990s; at the same time, various databases containing the content information and metadata were compiled, following the needs of different research groups. Since mid-nineties the percentage of born-digital materials has grown exponentially. In 2010, an online file repository and archival information system KIVIKE (acronym for the Virtual Cellar of the ELM) was established in order to preserve and manage all the digital collections and the information on all the archival collections of the ELM in one system. KIVIKE is a tool for archivists, researchers, and general public. The presentation will cover the opportunities and problems that have arosen when disclosing the data from a real archival cellar to a virtual one. One of the challenges has been the dichotomy between the open access principle and the protection of the rights of the donators.