Alvin is a national technical platform for the dissemination and long term preservation of digitised cultural heritage and digital collections in Sweden.Lövrander, Tina. "Kulturskatterna ska in i datorn", "Upsala Nya Tidning", Uppsala, 2 April 2018. Retrieved on 5 May 2019. The platform contains material from several Swedish cultural heritage organisations, and is operated and developed at Uppsala University Library in collaboration with Gothenburg University Library and Lund University Library through the Alvin consortium.Samuelsson, MarieLouise. "KB långt ifrån klart med uppdraget att digitalisera", "Universitetsläraren", Uppsala, 21 March 2019. Retrieved on 5 May 2019.
History
Alvin as a system originated from several different projects that Uppsala University Library ran or participated in during a period between 2000-2014:
Creating a database to handle Erik Waller's extensive autograph collection The management of the university library's digitized map and image collections through the image database Bildsök (sv. "Image Search") The provenance and material bibliographic database ProBok, which was a collaboration between Uppsala University Library and the University Library at Lund University The archive and handwriting infrastructure Ediffah, where several different Swedish research libraries collaborated
These differing and technically diverse projects had the management, operation and further development of these projects were both person-dependent and unsustainable in a long-term perspective. Samuelsson, MarieLouise. "KB långt ifrån klart med uppdraget att digitalisera", "Universitetsläraren", Uppsala, 21 March 2019. Retrieved on 5 May 2019.
The concept that then came to be Alvin was formulated in 2011 in a final report for the project LUPP.Andersson, S., Cullhed, P., von Wachenfeldt, M., Östlund, K. (2011). Digitaliseringssamarbete mellan Stiftsbiblioteket vid Linköpings Stadsbibliotek och Uppsala universitetsbibliotek. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden (Report). Available at: https://www.kb.se/Dokument/Bibliotek/projekt/slutrapporter2011/Slutrapport%20LUPP%20dnr%2051-789-2009.pdf [2011-03-28] In order to remedy the person-dependence and to prevent services from losing their technical relevance over time, a common platform should be launched.
The basic technical development of Alvin took place between 2012 and 2014 during the infrastructure project ArkA-D.Skärlund, Veronika. "Digitaliserat kulturarv", "Ergo", Uppsala, 7 March 2012. Retrieved on 5 May 2019. Finally, this project culminated in Alvin being launched at the conference Digitalisera - men sen då? (sv. "Digitise - but then what?"), at the Nordic Museum November 28, 2014.
References
Citations
Bibliography "About Alvin". info.alvin-portal.org/about-alvin/about-alvin/. Accessed June 24, 2020. "Background and history". wiki.epc.ub.uu.se/display/alvininfo. Accessed June 24, 2020.
External links
Alvin wiki