The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project: A Case Study

Abstract

In January 2022, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research completed the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project, a major international initiative to virtually reunite YIVO’s prewar collection held by YIVO in New York and three Lithuanian institutions: the Lithuanian Central State Archives, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, and the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. This project, which took seven years to complete and had a budget of nearly 7 million dollars, was the largest and most comprehensive digitization initiative YIVO had ever embarked on. This article chronicles the initiation, planning, and implementation of this major undertaking. It focuses on the success, setbacks, and lessons learned by the project team and how the procedures and workflows develop throughout the project now form the framework of YIVO’s subsequent digitization efforts.