The website inventingeurope.eu is an online exhibition of objects of the 19th and 20th centuries mostly concerning technological and science subjects but also some daily life elements as postcards, adverts or even packages of canned food offering visual and material sources to create a common European memory.
The site contains, to guide visitors, short articles to explain the evolution of technologies very accessible, also for non experienced readers, which include sources, footnotes and the author of the text.
The section 1000+ Objects shows pictures of items with their origin and their location, furnishing the necessary metadata. This also enables the visitors to use them as primary sources giving as well the links to the museums and archives where the objects or documents are kept. Object’s descriptions are a bit limited and very short but there is a connection to science articles to which the object is related (e.g. the TB House is linked to the historical background of the science techniques and measures to fight Tuberculosis in Europe). The section is very interesting and well done but however a better classification would be to divide items into different categories: like science, popular culture, architecture etc. because otherwise it is easy to get lost.
To avoid this problem the user can visit the section Exhibitions divided by subjects (daily lives, globalization etc.) or the Guest curated tours to follow in the right order the stories and the evolution of techniques.
In the section Partners there are information and links to the museums and archives collaborating with the project with their own web pages, which is also very useful. For academic purposes interesting are the outlines for teachers on how to use the website for courses and exercises. Short biographies and curriculum of the different curators of the exhibitions are outlined with the indication on which part they have created.
The website is very interesting to view and useful to acquire information and sources with however some little limitations in the organization.
#Education Some students of a MA Digital Humanities class wrote reviews on IE. Read this one by Beatrice Camar: http://t.co/sOE5qlXCi0