FREE Online Collections & Archives Portal at National Hellenic Museum
THE NHM LAUNCHES FREE ONLINE
COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES PORTAL
published in The National Herald
August 10, 2019
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To all our Hellenic Genealogy Geek members - This could make a huge difference when trying to communicate with relatives in Greece.
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CHICAGO – Dedicated to holding significant memories of the
Greek American experience and
Hellenic legacy, the National
Hellenic Museum (NHM) announced, on July 24 the launch
of the NHM Collections &
Archives Portal, which allows
anyone to access the Museum’s
catalogs online from anywhere
by viewing digitized artifacts
and archival materials.
With the largest collection of
its kind in the world, including
a rich repository of over 20,000
Greek-American artifacts, photos, historic newspapers, books,
and an archive of over 450
recorded oral histories, the
NHM serves as a resource at the
center of the community’s past,
present, and future.
Visitors may access the free,
digital NHM Collections &
Archives to view items such as
hand-woven textiles from the
1800s, articles of clothing from
1900, historical photographs depicting early Greek American
immigrant life, and more at
https://collections.nationalhellenicmuseum.org/.
“The NHM Collections &
Archives Portal showcases the
ongoing work the Museum does
to protect, catalog, and preserve
the historical archives representing the Greek American experience. We are very excited to
highlight the important work
the National Hellenic Museum
does gathering history for all
Greek Americans and of course
for Philhellenes and scholars,”
said Dr. Laura Calamos. “With
the launch of the digital
archives, everyone will now be
able to learn about our storied
history and culture from anywhere in the world!”
On the Portal, the NHM Collections & Archives are organized in five sections: Artifacts,
which contains a wide variety
of three-dimensional items, including religious objects, furniture, textiles, paintings, and
ephemera; Library, which is
comprised of books in both
Greek and English; Oral Histories, which contains hundreds
of recorded interviews with
Greek Americans (full-length interviews available onsite at the
Museum only); Images, a sizeable collection of historic photographs representing Greek
American life throughout the
20th century; and Archives,
which contains a growing number of finding aids for the
processed archival collections
donated by Greek American
businesses, organizations,
churches, and families. The
NHM Collections & Archives
Portal offers users the opportunity to search for pieces of history by year, language, collection, individuation, material and
organization.
“This is just the beginning for
the Portal. Every day we continue to add artifacts for online
viewing, and we conduct research to add more detail about
each item’s place in history. Going forward, we will continue
to catalogue and expand the online Portal. With such a great resource so accessible, we encourage everyone to continue to
check back often and interact
with the NHM Collections online. Now everyone can help
build the historical record which
will add rich details for preserving the memories of the community,” said Collections Manager Margaret Fraser.
An exciting feature of this
digital archive encourages user
generated comments for online
interactions so visitors to the
website have the ability to add
information to item records.
The
NHM Collections, Exhibit and
Education Teams then can use
such rich community knowledge
to add to the Museum holdings
and provide visitors with increasingly detailed descriptions
of artifacts along with a more
intimate understanding of their
place in history. While not all
comments will appear on the
website, such “community tagging” is a great way for individuals to support the Museum and
the history it preserves, from
anywhere in the world.
The National Hellenic Museum's Collections & Archives
Portal has been made possible
thanks in part to a generous donation from the Stathis Family
Limited Partnerships.
“The Stathis Family’s contributions to the NHM have been
first, to provide a library, at a
time when online technology
was in its infant stages. Currently, we continue to support
the idea of literature and historic preservation by venturing
into expansion of the online
presence of NHM through its
Collections and Digitization Programs to ensure that we keep
up with the times technically,”
said Georgia Stathis, NHM
Trustee and Board Member.
“This Museum is not just a museum for the Greek community.
Its mission is to preserve, share,
and to educate people about
Hellenic traditions, history, and
culture. It is all-inclusive in
terms of people we wish to
draw. Regardless of where we
go, we now have our history
and culture preserved forever
on the international global footprint.”
The NHM Collections &
Archives represent the Greek experience in America by preserving the items and artifacts that
the Greek American community
has carried with them, saved,
treasured, and eventually donated into the Museum’s custody. The NHM cares for every
item in the Collections, providing storage, preservation when
possible, and permitting appropriate access to Museum
archives for researchers and educators. The NHM accepted the
first artifact into its Collections
in 1993 – a dowry cedar chest
that is currently on display in
the core exhibit, “The Greek
Story in America”. Since then,
the NHM Collections have
grown significantly, with the
bulk of the Museum’s holdings
dating from 1890 – today. These
artifacts, and the stories that go
along with each one, are used
by museum educators, docents
and researchers to share learning about Greek American culture and history.
More information on the National Hellenic Museum is available online: nationalhellenicmuseum.org
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