Slovakia has a rich and colourful culture that reflects the long and varied history of each region. Contemporary culture in Slovakia is influenced by a variety of factors including Slavic tradition, religion, folklore, art, literature and architecture. Folklore and traditional crafts are an important part of Slovakia’s cultural heritage. Slovak folklore is expressed through the variety of traditional costumes, music, dance and singing. Due to the richness of Slovak culture and its beauty, BRAIN:IT approached the development of a project for the National Enlightenment Centre, an organisation of the Ministry of Culture. The main goal is to strengthen cultural identity, but especially to make the cultural wealth available online to the general public, to people with disabilities, in short, to all those who have to or want to view the various collections of works from the comfort of their homes.
Slovakiana - cultural heritage of Slovakia
Our customer is the National Enlightenment Centre, an organisation of the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic. Its main purpose is to strengthen the cultural identity of the Slovak Republic on a global level. With the customer we dealt with a specific project called Slovakiana. Slovakiana is an online portal that provides access to digitized books, maps, manuscripts, photographs, census sheets – digitized sheets from the Slovak census of 1930,1939 and 1940 and other cultural heritage. It is a digital library and repository of cultural heritage. Some of the objects are managed by the Slovak National Library. Users can search and browse the site. Access to the objects is controlled by different rights. Some objects in the database have only a description and are without images, which means that their digital form is not accessible. Slovakiana is a valuable resource for researchers, students and anyone interested in the culture and history of Slovakia. The web portal was launched in 2013 and now in 2023 our company BRAIN:IT has provided the site with a new look and design, a faster system and much more. It currently contains over 5 million cultural objects, including 1 and a half million census sheets. Out of this number, about 170 thousand documents, monuments, art objects, traditional culture and so on have been digitized. The actual digitisation of cultural objects is provided by the Slovak National Gallery, the Slovak National Library, the Slovak Film Institute, the Monuments Office of the Slovak Republic, the Small Carpathian Enlightenment Centre, the State Scientific Library in Prešov and the Slovak Folk and Art Collective, the Slovak National Museum, the Slovak National Archives and the National Enlightenment Centre, which is the operator of the Slovakiana portal.
Our challenge and goals
The aim of this unique project is to make cultural heritage and art accessible to the general public. Our company BRAIN:IT worked on creating a completely new portal Slovakiana.sk with an improvement of the original, outdated design. The general public was also involved in the design of the site. The whole project was created to promote Slovak cultural heritage and greater inclusiveness. Access to these works online allows even the disabled to safely browse individual works in the comfort of their own home, completely free of charge.
Our solution
Based on the customer’s requirements, our team created the Slovakiana.sk portal from scratch. The portal is divided into two parts, namely:
- Public – it is possible to browse and filter the website, save to favorites. “In the “Favorites” section you can also start the presentation of favorite objects,
- Admin – only the portal management has access to the admin section. Portal management includes creating homepage, managing dials, creating collections, articles, video gallery and educational materials.
Difficulty of the project
Size
4/6
Financial complexity
4/6
Time complexity
4/6
Complexity
4/6
Benefit for the customer
What the customer says about it?
