Contemplating historical photographs of Lanzarote, texts of the evolution that the island has undergone, statistics and maps will be very simple from this Thursday with the launch of the Digital Memory of Lanzarote project. The new website (www.memoriadelanzarote.com), which will be presented at 8:30 p.m. at the Sociedad Democracia, offers a digital documentation service, managed by the Cabildo Data Center, where visitors can review the history of the island during the 20th century.
Memoriadelanzarote.com is released with four information formats, specifically, images, documents, chronologies and statistics, and already has more than 3,000 records and 1,000 old photographs of Lanzarote. Among them, the legacy of images of the Matallana family stands out, which includes 200 portraits of the best-known characters from Arrecife in the early 20th century. Also noteworthy is the archive of Javier Reyes Acuña, a photographer from Haría who began his career in 1943 and who portrayed all aspects of social life of his time. Other important archives are those formed by the aerial images taken by the Air Force since 1954, the lots of the Cabildo Heritage Service and the collection of postcards from "Comercial Silva".
Files of more than 300 books
In the "Documents" section there are individualized files of 300 books, reports or scientific articles about the 20th century in Lanzarote and, in many cases, there is the option to download the electronic version of the text, as is the case with the collection of the Conference on Studies on Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. The part entitled "Chronology" responds to a more encyclopedic conception, since it records news and events that occurred during the 20th century, while the "Statistics" section houses more than 700 tables extracted mostly from the digitization of the Island Plan of 1973 and the PIOT of 1991.
The objective of the Cabildo Data Center with the launch of the Digital Memory of Lanzarote is to contribute to the dissemination and research on the history of Lanzarote, as well as collaborate in the electronic conservation of the historical, scientific, technical and artistic documentary heritage of the island. The initiative is open to the collaboration of all those organizations and individuals who wish to participate in this work and during its gestation it has had the support of various institutions (ULL, Canarian Employment Service, Pancho Lasso Art School and other departments of the Cabildo), especially from the Library of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which has advised on the establishment of technical parameters.
Digital Memory of Lanzarote works under free software with a relational database management system that follows the Dublin Core standards, a model used by institutions such as the Higher Center for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
