YIVO Vilnius Project (“The YIVO Vilna Collections Project”)
Aim of the project
The aim of the "YIVO Vilnius Project" is to create the largest digital collection preserving the historical memory of East European Jews.
Tasks of the project
1. Prepare metadada for the National Bibliographic Data Bank (NBDB) on Yiddish books published in Vilnius and stored in the National Library.
2. Prepare metadada for the National Bibliographic Data Bank (NBDB) on Hebrew books contained in M. Strašūnas' collection and stored in the National Library.
3. Perform book conservation processes and prepare books for digitization.
4. Digitize selected books in the Hebrew and Yiddish languages.
5. Provide the digitized images and the metadata of the physical and digitized object to the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Project duration
May 2015–December 2019
Project promoter
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Project partners
Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Central State Archive
Project coordinator within the NLL (unit, department)
Information Sciences Department, Information Resources Department
Project funding source, value (EUR)
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, private funds. The value of the project is over EUR 4 million.
Introduction of the project
The project will seek to preserve, digitize and virtually reunite YIVO's pre-war archives located in New York and Vilnius, and to digitally reconstruct M. Strašūnas Library of Vilnius , one of the greatest prewar libraries in Europe. The project encompasses 10,000 rare or unique publications related to the life, society, science, religion, education, culture and arts of East European Jews. The project will create a joint set of digital documents related to East European Jewish civilization including the largest collection of Yiddish language materials in the world. The digital archive will serve as an invaluable source of information for joint studies on Jewish civilization and culture.
Responsible person
Nijolė Bliūdžiuvienė, Director of the Information Sciences Department, tel. (+370 5) 239 8639,
e-mail
