Where do the digital objects come from?
Kulturpool contains image, text, video, audio files and 3D depictions of cultural heritage objects in Austria. But where do all these digital objects and their metadata come from?
The collections in Kulturpool
Kulturpool is the portal where partner institutions from all over Austria can present their digitised collections. The institutions decide which cultural heritage objects they want to digitise and display online. Digitisation is a very resource-intensive and time-consuming process, but over the years these institutions have succeeded in producing several thousand digital objects and making them available online.
Kulturpool enables users to carry out simultaneous searches across various sources (including many museums, libraries, archives, and research institutions), providing a comprehensive overview and saving a great deal of time. Additionally, there is always a link that refers back to the institution’s online collection (“See original”), where the digital object can often be viewed with additional information and provides an option for downloading.
Museums, libraries, and archives
The institutions that have made their online collections searchable in Kulturpool are very diverse. The initiative includes not only museums from areas such as art, the history of everyday life, and regional history, but also archives with images, historical documents, and video files, not to mention libraries with their collections of books and images.
Institutions from all over Austria are part of the initiative, from regional museums to universities and Bundesmuseen (Austrian federal museums). Kulturpool relies on the commitment of the participating cultural and knowledge institutions to contribute content. The collections of renowned, internationally recognised institutions are brought together with the precious treasures of smaller cultural sites in one convenient location, just waiting to be discovered.
Kulturpool keeps growing
As of its launch in 2024, Kulturpool already contains over one million digital objects. And it is continuing to grow. New institutions are constantly being integrated into Kulturpool and even more digitised cultural treasures will be searchable and visible to everyone from one central location.
In this way, Kulturpool will continuously evolve to include exciting and diverse new content.