Digitalization and deep indexing of the collection “Alfred Krupp (1812-1887) and his wife Bertha, née. Eichhoff (1831-1888)” at the Krupp Historical Archive

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ralf Stremmel
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History ; Economic and Social History
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 441600883

The goal of this project is the digitalization and analytical indexing of the archival collection "Alfred Krupp (1812-1887) and his wife Bertha, née Eichhoff (1831-1888)" at the Krupp Historical Archive. Alfred Krupp ranks among the world's most important entrepreneurs during the age of industrialization. The documents, among them records, photographies and further images, touch the topics of economy, politics, the social question, and technology. The documents are unique, and their significance includes the written documents as well as the photographs. There is no known collection of other entrepreneurs from this time period with a similar density of information. The collection spans 25 running meters, has a retention period from 1826 to 1887, and comprises 1.763 units of description. As a first step, these units of description (items) of the collection are to be digitalized by an external service provider, in close coordination with the Krupp Historical Archive and in consideration of the DFG-rules for "Digitalization". Subsequently, the rudimentary descriptive identification of the items, dating back to the 1900s and 1930s, is to be revised and supplemented by deep, analytic descriptions. For this, the archival software FAUST will be used.In a third step, the descriptive identification will be migrated into a EAD(DDB)-compliant XML-format, supplemented by metadata-files and uploaded to the portal www.archive.nrw.de, which will link to the files. The thyssenkrupp AG IT-department will store the files and keep them accessible to the public.Finally, www.archive.nrw.de will provide the data to the Archivportal D, the German Digital Library, and the Europeana. Thus, it will be made available for national and international research.The project is part of a long-term revision and re-indexing of core collections of the Krupp Historical Archive and will function as a kick-off for a strategic digitalization of its main collections.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Christian Böse