The Digital Memory of Lanzarote website, developed by the Data Center of the Cabildo, offers access to thousands of documented images about the island's past. These days the portal, which appears with a new aesthetic, has implemented improvements that facilitate searching and access from mobile devices, and the processes that allow better collection of its metadata by international digital libraries and archives have also been modernized.
'Memory of Lanzarote' is an open archive that is based on a participatory process, in which citizens and entities temporarily transfer their private collections of old photographs so that the Cabildo can digitize them and, subsequently, return those original images to their owners with their respective digitized copies.
According to Paula Corujo, Councilor for Education and Participation of the Cabildo, it is about offering "a collective platform for all those interested in the conservation, dissemination and knowledge of the past of Lanzarote. It is the best way to help its social revaluation."
With this initiative, which has had great participation since its inception, more than 100,000 old photographs of the island have been digitized, of which 12,500 of them, already documented and cataloged, can now be consulted on the new website (www.memoriadelanzarote.com). Within this material, the image archives of photographers Javier Reyes, José Pérez Duque, Carroza-Wagner, Richard Maslonka and Jacinto Alonso stand out, as well as thematic collections on César Manrique, cinema shot in Lanzarote, Carnival, etc.
Promote filmed images
In addition, 'Memory of Lanzarote' also offers the possibility of accessing almost 1,000 historical documents on various topics about the island, as well as audio and video files. In this sense, at the beginning of 2020 it is planned to promote the digitization and dissemination of old filmed material about the island that has been collected with the cooperation of the Filmoteca Canaria.
Recently, there has also been collaboration with the Lanzarote Film Festival, which has dedicated a section to disseminating and collecting this type of images with projections throughout the municipalities of the island, and which will later be incorporated into the website for viewing.
Access to old press from Lanzarote
From 'Memory of Lanzarote' you can access the consultation of old press from the island, through the Jable portal of the Library of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. An initiative that has had the collaboration of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and that has allowed the digitization of a large part of the old press published on the island, with more than sixty newspapers, including Crónica de Lanzarote (1861-62), which was the first published in Lanzarote, Pronósticos (1946-1948) and Antena (1953-1970), etc.
Those people who have old images and wish to participate in this project can write to the email datos1@cabildodelanzarote.com or contact the telephone 928 81 01 00 (ext 3006).