Abstract (eng)
The following text intends to give an overview on the emergence and the current status of the digitisation of archival material. It is based on the considerations by Walter Benjamin explicated in his 1936 text The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. The concepts established by Benjamin, especially the idea of an Aura and its transformation due to mechanical reproduction, are utilised on the current preconditions and their applicability today is probed. Adhering to this approach, the currently operating processes, both in the society as a whole and in a cultural sense, provide the background for detailed reflections on the subject. Additionally, the necessary vocabulary for the following considerations is being established. These introductory parts are completed by an overview of the history of the digitisation of archival material on the basis of real world examples. These are in turn being used as starting points for a detailed examination of specific problems and perspectives in this field. The examples include the Monasterium-project, which aims at the creation of an online-database of charters and the crowdsourcing-projects of the US-government office NARA. Finally, the current tendencies visible in the area of digitisation of archival material as a whole will be tested for their potential effects on the archives, their content and their future development.