Dutch Caribbean archives digitalised

More than half a million historical books, documents and photos from the Dutch Caribbean islands have been digitalised as part of the project Dutch Caribbean Collections up to 1954, and will become accessible for education and research purposes.

The project is a cooperation of several institutions in the Netherlands and in Curaçao. Involved are the library of the University of Curaçao, the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies KITLV, the Royal Institute for the Tropics KIT and the libraries of the Leiden University.

The Dutch Caribbean collections of the three institutes in the Netherlands have been digitalised, and together with the digital collection of the library of the University of Curaçao, will be made available online for education and research purposes.

In total there are more than half a million scans available of books, articles, magazines, archive material, photos and maps that relate to the six islands. The digitalisation was subsidised by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science OCW. On Saturday, December 3, the result will be presented during a festive symposium in Leiden and in Curaçao.

The digital collections will become available on the Dutch Caribbean Digital Platform of the University of Curaçao, the Digital Library of the Caribbean and a new platform for the digital collections of the University of Leiden, in which the Caribbean collection will have a prominent place.

In order to allow optimal use of the collection, the digital libraries will be equipped with modern users’ possibilities such as the sharing, manipulating and annotating of the documents.

The Daily Herald.