On 16 June, a collaboration day for the Estonian Research and Cultural Data Digital Infrastructure, ERCDI, was held at the Estonian Literary Museum, the lead partner of the infrastructure.
The opening remarks were held by Piret Voolaid, Director of the Estonian Literary Museum, and Mari Väina, Head of the ERCDI. Thereafter, the partners DataCite Estonia and E-Varamu, both of which had already been active on the Estonian Research Infrastructures Roadmap, presented their achievements to date and future plans. Then, the presentation by the development partner Cybernetica AS followed.
The HUM data lab is a new initiative created by the Estonian Literary Museum. The head of the lab Kaisa Langer spoke about the results of the first year: the emergence of a collaborative research community from various fields of the humanities, the first descriptions of open workflows, a hackathon using humanities datasets, and a course based on the Literary Museum’s datasets that develops students’ practical digital humanities skills. HUM data lab’s new developer, Jaan Sokk, presented ideas and options from which more specific development directions can be chosen for the workflow publishing environment and registry.
The day continued with a roundtable discussion, “The role of E-Varamu in the field of memory institutions”, moderated by Aija Sakova. Representatives of the National Archives and the National Library also took part in the discussion, which brought out several possible functionalities and integrations through which the new E-Varamu portal could be useful for researchers, memory institutions, and wider audiences.
Feedback on ERCDI's first-year report had highlighted the need for greater cooperation and coherence within the infrastructure.
Prompted by this, the day concluded with a workshop led by Pille Runnel and Mari Väina. The workshop sought to identify points of synergy along the stages of the value chain, from digitised and enriched research and cultural data to open science and public access. It also addressed the question: what results would remain unreachable if the modules did not collaborate?
In conclusion, the organisers and several participants noted that the collaboration day had been a necessary undertaking: it increased mutual understanding and trust, and provided encouragement and inspiration for seeking further solutions.
View Alar Madisson’s photo gallery from the collaboration day here.
