Goobi: Software Suite for Support During Digitization in Croatian Archival Institutions

Abstract

After the establishment of the Central System within the “e-Culture – Digitization of Cultural Heritage” project the archival community in Croatia obtained a system for storage, access, aggregation and search of cultural heritage. For the purpose of storage of digitized archives within the Central System the heritage institutions in Croatia use Goobi web application, the latter being one of the basic tools with such purpose. The paper strives to give an overview of the application and explain in detail how it works. It also aims to present the experience of working with the application, while also delineating the possible problems that occur in practice.
Goobi is a software suite for support during the process of digitization that offers accessible settings. The application’s interface has been designed to enable users to follow simple steps during the digitization process. Despite the fact this version of the software had been adapted for the needs of the Croatian archival community, current experiences in its usage point out to certain deficiencies. Namely, these concern certain technical limitations which pertain to the network bandwidth and size of the storage area on servers of individual institutions. There is also the problem of insuficient quality of communication between the application and the Central System.
Additional software updates will undoubtedly be necessary in due time in order to rectify these shortcomings, which indicates the importance of communication between the archival community and technological partners within the project. The experience so far points out to the necessity of dependable solutions due to the sheer complexity and lengthiness of the digitization process. By changing the previous work methodology digitization also provides numerous new possibilities pertaining to the protection, preservation and usage of archives.