Traces of archaeological knowledge generation. Propylaeum-VITAE - an instrument for the history of science in archaeology

• Applicants: Dr. Annette Frey; Dr. Gabriele Rasbach
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 452800897

Bibliographic information and the sources held in archives are necessary tools for research into the history of science and its networks across Europe, through which stocks of knowledge are developed, established and disseminated. Since their foundations (RGZM 1852, RGK 1902), the Roman-Germanic Commission (RGK) and the Roman-Germanic Central Museum (RGZM) have been researching the pre- and early history of Europe from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages. In addition to the two largest European libraries specialising in Pre- and Early History, they maintain extensive archives with administrative files, correspondence from scholars, documents on research activities and scholarly bequests. The aim of the project is to make these holdings accessible via the portal "Propylaeum-VITAE. Actors – Networks – Practices" of the specialist information service (FID) Propylaeum (https://www.propylaeum.de/themen/Propylaeum-VITAE/). The portal is intended to provide a dynamic, networked display of these holdings, to make them accessible in terms of content and thus to make them available to the specialist public.The information system Propylaeum-VITAE will thus be expanded by data records on about 3000 persons and, in addition, enriched by information on the activities and networks of the persons already recorded. The archives of the applicants will thus be made accessible to the public according to current standards of research data management (LOUD & FAIR) and will in future be available for research in the history of science and the history of science as well as for complex analyses of the networks of the actors. The international orientation of both the RGK and the RGZM also makes it possible to extend the previous German-speaking focus of Propylaeum-VITAE to Europe and beyond. Further data from archives and literature holdings of institutions distributed all over Germany will also be entered by cooperation partners. The evaluation of these decentralized data sets is part of this application and will be undertaken by the applicants.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Participating Institution: Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA); Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI) ; Römisch-Germanische Kommission (RGK) Frankfurt a.M.; Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg ; Universitätsbibliothek
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Kerstin P. Hofmann