Sara Sapire and John Carlson
Feb 22 at SML

The Stalin Digital Archive (SDA) was developed by the Yale University Press as a platform for providing online access to primary source materials from Stalin’s personal papers and monographs on communism. From advanced search and browse functionality to personalized workspaces, the SDA uses technology to enhance the process and impact of scholarship. Come see how this unique platform seeks to advance research and teaching by introducing new ways for scholars and students to both interact with the archive materials and collaborate with students and peers.

Summary:

To support scholarly research and shed light into one of the most fascinating lives in history, John Carlson and Sara Sapire of the Yale University Press have been part of a team working on making available over 28,000 documents or 404,000 pages of text from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI). Known as the Stalin Digital Archive, it is possibly one of the most ambitious digitizations of printed and written content in history. The SDA also provides extensive insight into the life of Joseph Stalin. Developed open source, the project aims to stimulate public debate, educate, and break ground in the way library patrons and academia conduct research. Built on top of the Drupal content management system, the SDA website consists of multiple tools, include search, document viewing, personalization, and collaboration. These features allow for elaborate collaboration on documents through annotations, tags, and discussion forums. They also make database access simple and versatile. Powered by Ruby, SQL, and XML, the SDA backend processes content provided by RGASPI using a multi-step approach, all ending with dissemination, social scholarship, and publishing. Initially funded by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation in 2007, the SDA has tremendous potential to serve of use for world-class research.