The Centrale Collection
The foundation of the International Institute of Social History in 1935 would have been impossible without the support of 'De Centrale Arbeiders Levensverzekerings Maatschappij' (Central Workers Life Insurance Company), an insurance company with close ties to the Dutch Social-Democratic movement. De Centrale provided funds for housing and staff. In the years between 1935 and 1940, De Centrale also bought many important collections on behalf of the Institute, such as the archives of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the German SPD and Michail Bakunin, and the collections of Max Nettlau and Lucien Descaves.
In February 2008 the IISH and 'Reaal Verzekeringen', successor to De Centrale, signed an agreement that allows for the duplication and/or digitization of all the documents concerned, which creates new possibilities for making them available online. This large and complex project will start in 2009, and the first results will be seen in the second half of the year. All in all, around 168 meters of archival documents, 4.000 to 5.000 photos, prints and posters and a large number of printed publications will be digitized and made accessible.
On this small website, you can get a first impression of some of the web interfaces to be developed, with representations of the 'Centrale Collection' on a timeline and a map. This interface is developed with software from the MIT Simile project.
See also:
Megabytes of Marx
(On the agreement between IISH and the Reaal Group, February 2008)
The IISH: History and Activities
(Brief overview)
IISH Annual Report 1936
(Text of the IISH's first annual report, in Dutch)
N.W. Posthumus
(Biography of IISH founder)
N. de Lieme
(Biography of founder of 'De Centrale')
A.C. Adama van Scheltema-Kleefstra
(Biography of the first IISH librarian)
Simile project
(Homepage of the Simile project at MIT)
Simile Widgets
(Simile open source widgets and documentation)