Paper details
Europeana Newspapers Project Contribution to the Freedom of Information: Finding Out About Nikola Tesla from Historical Newspapers
Author
Stela Filipi Matutinović, University of Belgrade - University Library "Svetozar Marković", Serbia
Co-authors
Jelena Andonovski University of Belgrade - University Library "Svetozar Marković", Serbia
Documents to download
Abstract
Newspapers are very valuable source of information on the events and people, both contemporary and historic. Nikola Tesla was an extraordinary inventor and scientist whose achievements changed the lives of millions. So far it was very expensive and time-consuming if one was to find information about his life and work in newspaper articles published during his lifetime. Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade possesses 70 000 newspaper clippings, but they are not digitized.
EU funded CIP ICT-PSP project „A Gateway to European Newspapers“(2012–2015) will provide portal Europeana with 18 million pages of digitized newspapers in Open Access. 17 partnering institutions will provide examples of best practice for future projects that involve digitization of newspaper materials. For the first time a huge corpus of fully searchable materials will be available in Europeana.
Project result will enable everybody to search and read about Tesla, or any other subject, without the obligation to go to a library, museum or to pay. The users will have the chance to find contemporary newspaper information on Tesla that paint a different and perhaps a more objective picture than later publications on this great man.
During the General Assembly of the project held in Paris in January 2013, partners agreed to invite 11 more European libraries to join the project as associated partners. It will be an opportunity to share the knowledge gained and expose digitized newspapers content of associated partners through Europeana. National Library of Czech Republic is among them.
Author's professional CV
Stela Filipi Matutinovic, PhD., University of Belgrade, University Library „Svetozar Marković“, Serbia Stela Filipi Matutinovic was born in Belgrade, Serbia, graduated at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Belgrade and received Ph.D. at the Faculty of Biology in 1993. Employed at the University Library “Svetozar Marković” in Belgrade since 1975, as librarian for scientific information in biomedical sciences, deputy director and director of the library. Main activities performed were concerning modernization of library services, user education, bibliometric research and building stronger connection between academic libraries in Serbia. Coordinator of one TEMPUS and two CIP EU projects concerning establishment of Virtual Library of Serbia and digitization of rare books and newspapers. Conducts courses and gives lectures for students and academic librarians concerning copyright, open access to scientific information, scientometrics and electronic resources available through Serbian consortium for coordinated acquisition KoBSON.
