Universität zu Köln

The essay discusses the digitisation of archival records in Austria. First it presents the role of Monasterium.net for the digitisation of charters. It argues that the Austrian archives administration in the current state of division into independent units would not have been able to create a common portal similar in coverage and functionality to Monasterium.net. Furthermore the paper discusses the technologies used in the Austrian State Archives for the archival description of charters. It concludes giving an opinion on the perspective of future mass digitisation of other types of records. It argues that this kind of project will be realised in the near future as it is technically unproblematic and the obvious way to fulfil the archival mission of making historical documentation accessible to the general public. The author questions whether the archives have set their internal priorities appropriately to provide the necessary resources for this kind of project.

English