UPDATE (8 September 2025)
Unfortunately, due to illness in the lab, we need to postpone today’s ETCL Nuts & Bolts talk to later in September.
We are coordinating with our esteemed speaker, Lambert Heller, to reschedule the session in an online format, as he will be traveling back home. We will share the new date, time, and connection details as soon as they are confirmed.
Our apologies for the short notice and any inconvenience caused. Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to welcoming you to the rescheduled session.
—
Original post (3 September 2025)
You’re cordially invited to the second talk in our revived ETCL Nuts and Bolts series featuring Lambert Heller from the TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology.
The Nuts and Bolts discussions are designed to focus on the pragmatics of digital research, tapping into the experiences and expertise of people working on a variety of DH projects. This session continues that exploration by looking at the development of a large-scale digital public history project.
Event Details
- Date: <Monday, September 8, 2025
- Time: 4:00–5:00PM (PDT)
- Location: ETCL, UVic Libraries (McPherson Library, 3rd Floor, Room A314)
- Format: ~45-minute talk + informal Q&A
- Registration: Not required—just drop in
About the Speaker
Lambert Heller is the Head of the Open Science Lab at TIB. A librarian and social scientist by training, his work focuses on new practices and tools for scholarly communication, including peer production, citizen science, and research data management. He is the co-author of a German-language standard work on scholarly practice and co-founder of the Open Science Radio podcast.
Talk Title
“Building Gestapo.Terror.Places: Citizen Science and Digital Memory in Practice”
About the project
Gestapo.Terror.Places (OGT) is a collaborative research and public-memory initiative mapping the sites and infrastructure of Gestapo terror across present-day Lower Saxony (1933–1945), and publishing the evolving historical record as a time-enabled, interactive, open resource. The platform connects archival sources, scholarship, and memorial site knowledge with linked open data (e.g., Wikidata, OpenStreetMap) and a Wikibase-backed research database to support both scholarly use and public contribution. The project is led by the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation and TIB’s Open Science Lab, with an emphasis on open GLAM (cultural institutions – Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums – supporting open access to their collections), reusability, and educational outreach (see the TIB project overview and public site at: https://projects.tib.eu/ogt-orte-des-gestapoterrors/en/project/ and https://www.gestapo-terror-orte.de/).
About the session
This session will provide a look into the development of the Gestapo.Terror.Places project, focusing on its citizen science and collective memory work. Lambert Heller will discuss the project’s process, including lessons learned during its development and the challenges that remain for initiatives like this.
Why attend?
- Learn about the practical challenges and outcomes of building a large-scale digital public history project.
- Explore the methods behind using citizen science for collective memory work.
- Gain insight into how libraries and memorial sites can collaborate on digital research infrastructure.
- Connect informally with like-minded enthusiasts across DH, library innovation, and public history.
As is tradition, the conversation will continue informally after the Q&A. We look forward to seeing you there!