About us
What does the Community Collections portal contain?
What does the Community Collections portal contain?You will find over 170 000 materials here—archival photographs, documents, family keepsakes, and recorded oral history accounts. These materials are currently shared by more than 270 community archives from all over Poland, and these numbers continue to grow!
The portal is managed by the Centre of Community Archives
It serves community archives all across Poland
It allows sharing of digitized collections
What collections can be found in the portal?
The materials collected on the Community Collections portal tell the stories of communities in both cities and towns, large and small, as well as villages in almost every region of the country. They include, e.g., recollections of a former scout who visited Cuba in the 1970s, or photographs of cooks and waitresses who once worked in a now-defunct restaurant. You can come across photos from the ads of Fiat 126p or postcards from trips to sanatoriums dating back to the turn of the 20th century.For example, if you type the keyword ‘school’ into the search engine, you will discover thousands of photographs of classrooms, school buildings and school uniforms. You can learn what subjects were taught at a given time from school certificates that can be found among hundreds of documents. You can also listen to audio or watch video recordings with stories once heard in school corridors.In other words, Community Collections document everyday life, celebrations and rituals, regional traditions, and local events from the history of a community. The materials cover the period from the 19th century to the present day.
Who publishes collections on the Community Collections portal?The collections available on the portal have been gathered thanks to the efforts of community archives—grassroots initiatives driven by passion for preserving historical records. There are approximately 800 community archives across the country, with over 270 of them sharing their collections on the Community Collections portal.Community archives are run by, e.g.:
Community Collections portal teamcultural centres
libraries and media centres
associations and foundations
schools and universities
Universities of the Third Age
Volunteer Fire Department units
scouting troops
farmers’ wives’ associations
The portal operates thanks to the dedication of many employees of the Centre of Community Archives and numerous associates of the Centre. Meet the individuals who help create a space where community archives can share their collections.
Management of the portal and the Open Archive SystemEwa MajdeckaHomepage curatorsAgata BujnowskaMałgorzata KudoszEwa MajdeckaJoanna MichałowskaMarta MichalskaIwona Oleszczuk-Jaźwiecka
Consultations and training with Open Archive SystemAndrzej KonopkaMałgorzata KudoszTechnological development of the portal and Open Archive SystemSzymon AdamiakWojciech BudziszDenys GornicharDaniel KęskaMichał KikołaFilip MakowieckiAgata Haras MartinsPiotr Mroczkowski
