Every now and then I also find things that may be of interest to archives, museums or widely known collectors. In such cases, I contact the institution that I think is the most suitable.

Activist Donor

Similar to an “Activist shareholder” I see myself as an activist donor, which means that it is not only important to me that an artifact or a medium is preserved, but also that access to it is possible by up to date (digital) means for the general public. This is of course due to my professional background and is simply a necessity in preserving cultural heritage. If your institution is not able to do this, I would be happy to support you.

Therefore, I expect the institution to be prepared to meet the following of conditions:

• Cataloging
  The object will be placed in your publicly and online accessible record system (catalogue, etc.) at short notice. The record can be retrieved at least via a persistent URL in HTML format. The catalog entry is not subject to any restrictions on subsequent re-use (e.g. CC0). The provenance (i.e. the donor) part of the catalogue entry.
  Ideally, the catalogue record is also available in machine-readable form in an internationally recognised file format for the respective object type via an interface.
  Exhibition or lending of the shall take place with mention of the provenance.
• Digitisation
The object is digitized and the resulting files (including raw data) are made available to me for presentation - the license should allow the widest possible reuse - ideally CC0.
• Presentation in your online portal
The digitized material is presented in the context of your other digitised objects, regardless of whether the presentation takes place directly in your institution or in a (library) network.
• Publication in a supra-regional portal
You upload or reference the digitised object including metadata into a research portal with at least a nationwide reach (for archive material, for example Archivportal D, for printed items the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek).
• Research / Classification / Contextualization
The catalogue record is enriched with further information known to them. In the process, cross-references are formed, e.g. via norm data, the object is described and (organisation-specific) keywords are added. If the necessary norm data (for persons or organisations) does not exist, the institution involved creates it.

The whole process should ideally take no longer than 12 months.

Previous donations

The previously donated highlights: