1

Revealing the

unseen

Ceciel Huitema (Nationaal Archief) &

Nico Vriend (Noord-Hollands Archief)

Symposium ‘Googelen door archieven’

13 oktober 2016

Revealing the unseen

• 140 meters of documents

• Covering only ten years

Example: Ministry of Colonies, 1910-1919

Accessible?

• Descriptions of specific documents are ‘invisible’

Presented online as:

However, descriptions are available…

• Created at the time (1910-1919) • 4 meters of ‘indexes’ to access 140 meters of documents

Can HTR help us to reveal the unseen?

• Advantages: • Uniformity • Only a few different handwritings

• Biggest challenge: • How can we reconnect information from different columns?

Can HTR help us to reveal the unseen?

• Advantages: • Most governmental archives are structured in more or less

the same way

Municipality of Haarlem, 1886-1898

Goals

2 in 1: 1) Testing HTR: text recognition and functionalities

2) Revealing the unseen iceberg

• Creating metadata in bulk

Illustratie Shutterstock © grop

Pilots 1) Ministry of Colonies, 1910-1919

(Nationaal Archief)

2) Municipality of Haarlem, 1886-1898

(Noord-Hollands Archief)