A new milestone in source collections has been reached: the Topotheques now manage over 2 million records full of everyday history. In addition to major political events, there are the now-vanished inn, the Corpus Christi procession from my youth, and the chewing gum machine at the bus stop (which used so many coins to spit out the first ring for my first girlfriend) that can be found online again here. Memories cling to these often inconspicuous historical relics; forgotten stories unfold when photos are revisited, and people rekindle conversations with stories from back then. Often, this can be done at the village‘s last innkeeper rather than just online. Topotheques are increasingly succeeding in securing the scattered material gathering dust in drawers and albums and making it searchable for everyone with precise keywords. The pink button for the map in the top right or the list below shows how many there are now.
Our History in Our Hands
Most Topotheques are run by local authorities in the form of municipalities, municipal archives, or museums. Thus, these digital collections — as the mayors‘ forewords demonstrate — are official repositories that keep the treasures of local history in their own hands and protect them from financial exploitation by institutions and publishers. The fact that all this has been made possible is not thanks to a major funding initiative, but rather to the tireless efforts of our volunteer Topothequers, who, as citizen scientists, call on citizens to dust off the old shoeboxes filled with photos and films, share the stories behind them, and digitize and index the loaned material in their free time. So that perhaps one day you, too, can find your great-great-grandfather at the Harvest Festival in the 1920s — in a yellowed photograph hidden in someone else‘s home.
A big THANK YOU
We would therefore like to express our sincere gratitude for the tireless efforts of our Topothequers. And a huge thank you to all those who provide digital insights into their private treasures, helping to grow the historical mosaic of the communities. We look forward to what other exciting retrospectives we will be able to see until the next million entries!