The Archive of Ethnological and Anthropological Resources (AEAR) as well as the Digital Archive of Ethnological and Anthropological Resources (DAEAR) at IEA present a central and unique source of relevant information belonging to the field of ethnology and anthropology of Macedonia and wider area, for all those that are interested in cultural heritage of Macedonia. These archives contain all collected ethnographic, folklore and other anthropological materials, special collections of objects, archive materials, audio, photo and video materials that are now kept at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. Both archives are continuously updated with all materials that are collected during the realization of the research projects and field studies at IEA. Thus, they are both cumulative basis.
The archives are accessible and very important in the process of modernization of the ethnological and anthropological curricula, since the students can directly and practically participate in all phases of the process of creation of documents that are part of the cultural heritage of Macedonia. The AEAR and DAEAR are extremely useful to researchers from the fields of ethnology and anthropology, and this is why it is planned that they become accessible through Internet as well.
Objectives
The existence of AEAR/DAEAR is of national importance for the Republic of Macedonia since their objective is to collect, register and present the ethnological, folklore and anthropological materials of the cultures of the ethnic communities that live in Macedonia. These Archives are relatively new, from the end of the 90’ties of the 20th century, but there are also materials from Macedonia that date from the beginning of the 20th century, as special archive collections of special national importance (materials of Joseph Obrembski from 1931/2 and materials of Joel M. Halpern on Macedonia from 1954-2004.Through the creation of DAEAR we will try to overcome the difficulties with the classic ways of collection, archiving and presentation of cultural heritage. It is high time to undertake activities for protection, in form of digital documents or their copies, of archive materials that are kept in the Archives and date from the past century. This is why we try to digitalize the existing database and present the materials in different categories of ethnological and anthropological cultural heritage: audio-materials (interviews, oral materials from the past and present); transcribed field materials (in digital form), visual materials (photographs and video-materials, older archive documents etc.
The process of the creation of the AEAR/DAEAR basis and their continuous utilization and upgrading will be directly linked to the improvement and modernization of the curricula at IEA, especially related to the subjects as Field Ethnology I, II, III, IV, as well as Methodology of Ethnological Research.
The AEAR/DAEAR currently contains all audio, video and other materials that have been collected during research at IEA. The total number of audiotapes is 370, with the same numbers of transcribed materials. The process of digitalization of the audio and video materials is ongoing. The AEAR/DAEAR contains materials from:
1. Field materials (audio, video, photographs) collected during field research at IEA and field trips with the students of IEA;
2. Materials from the collection of Prof. Halpern on Macedonia (data base, photographs, archive materials);
3. Materials from Joseph Obrembski (Polish ethnologists and anthropologist who conducted research in Poreche, Macedonia in 1931/32. The materials are copies from the Archive of the Du Bois University Library, Massachusetts, USA, where the originals are kept).