Celebrating Olympic Day with new sports heritage on Europeana

Europeana’s Sport season explores how sport shapes our sense of self, community and Europe through a variety of remarkable cultural heritage objects that showcase the geographic and cultural diversity of Europe. Europeana will feature digital storytelling about sporting heritage, from collection days to blogs and galleries, while the new Sports Stories page on Europeana gives a global audience direct access to wonderful sporting material.

The season coincides with the Europeana Generic Services project, Europeana Sport, which aims to deliver new digital objects relating to sporting heritage to Europeana. Among other Generic Services projects, The Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision is a partner in Europeana Sport as well as the coordinator of Europeana XX, focusing on the 20th century’s social, political and economical changes. Bringing these projects together, Sound & Vision teamed up with Dutch sport historian Jurryt van de Vooren to explore how to tell the story of 125 years of Olympics through both a Dutch and global lens. 

Researching the rich collections on Europeana we realised that there was something missing: the beautiful collection of NOC*NSF, the Dutch Olympic organisation. With the help of Erfgoed Gelderland, we approached Bernard Hilgers, Conservator Olympic Sport Heritage, at NOC*NSF and asked if it would be possible to open up their rich collection for inclusion in Europeana. 

With the dedication of the team at NOC*NSF, the support of Erfgoed Gelderland and the aggregator Digitale Collectie, we are delighted to see this collection of around 2,000 public domain objects is now available in Europeana! Selected items will be used in the upcoming Europeana XX MuPop exhibition ‘Olympia on the North Sea’ that will be on display at Beeld en Geluid Den Haag from 17 July until 29 August.

Alongside the exhibition, a Europeana Sport collection day will be held where the public is invited to bring in their memorabilia and share their sporting memories with Europeana Sport - keep checking Europeana’s Sports collection days page to find out more!

NOC*NSF were delighted to see this collection made available through Europeana. Bernard Hilgers says, ‘The encouragement from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and the support of Erfgoed Gelderland combined with the momentum of the sport season at Europeana was just the push we needed to open up our collection for the world to enjoy! We are excited to see that sporting heritage is taking such a central and important role on Europe’s platform for cultural heritage and we are proud to be part of it and celebrate Olympic Day together!’

Tim Stapel, Digital Collections Coordinator, Erfgoed Gelderland, says, ‘It is great to see this collection from our longstanding partner NOC*NSF openly available on Europeana! It is important to make sure that important collections like this are accessible on international platforms such as Europeana, and we hope that many will enjoy it. Teaming up with Digitale Collectie, the Dutch national aggregator, The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and the Data Publishing Services team at Europeana was a pleasure and we look forward to many more fruitful collaborations’.

Truly in line with the Olympic Spirit,  this collaboration is a fantastic example of the value of the Europeana ecosystem -  how a thematic approach encourages and inspires, and brings more open cultural heritage collections into Europeana, for all to enjoy!