CENDARI launch in Berlin an occasion to celebrate

Over 700 people watched online as CENDARI researchers gave live demonstrations of the research platform, introducing the Note-Taking Environment and the Archival Research Guides to an audience of historians and archivists from cultural heritage institutions at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.  

In her welcoming remarks, project coordinator Dr Jennifer Edmond, of the Trinity Long Room Hub in Dublin, observed “In a globalised Europe, we can no longer afford to treat the evidence of history as belonging only to national silos, but that is still how the archives, libraries and museums of Europe are by and large organised.  Through CENDARI historians can approach questions of identity and history transnationally, uncovering shared experiences across borders as well as official narratives contained within them, highlighting also those collections and stories that risk becoming 'hidden' because of how they have been viewed or because they happen to be held in economically less well-off countries.”  

Oliver Janz, Professor of Modern History at Freie Universität Berlin who coordinated  the historical component of the project, commented, "The visibility of the holdings and their searchability within a single repository will certainly change the way historians work and support a better planning of travel to archives."

Leading historian Dr Erik Kwakkel gave a keynote talk on "Something Old, Something New: Medieval Manuscripts in the Digital Age," while Prof. Maciej Górny shared the perspective of a modern historian in his talk, "World War One Research in a Transnational and Digital Age."  

The expert panel contributed to a lively discussion to the final part of the launch, and were happy to take questions via Twitter, proving the truly transnational nature of the project.  

What next for CENDARI?

The launch in Berlin was the culmination of the project and an opportunity to publicly present everything that the team learned, as well as products such as the Note-Taking Environment and the Archival Research Guides. While the CENDARI project officially came to an end on the 31st of January, it is hoped that the ethos, networks and communities of CENDARI will live on as a working group under the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH).  

After four years, Dr. Jennifer Edmond promised, "We will continue to share the lessons we’ve learned so that other projects and digital infrastructures can benefit from our experience."