Olivier Nyirubugara Digitized but underutilized. Heritage websites and teaching history Cultural heritage collections are to be found in cyberspace. Almost all heritage organisations have websites showing their collections. Digitizing the collections to present them online was not just meant to preserve old and fragile objects. Another goal was to be achieved, namely to strengthen the Dutch national identity, in particular that of young people. Two case studies are presented in this article: how do thirteen and fourteen year old pupils use the digitized collections with their history assignments? This research shows that websites of the cultural heritage organisations are not popular among these pupils. Hence the question why they make so little use of these websites. The main explanations for this appears to be that the websites are not easy to find by the search engines due to the lack of hyperlinks. Another cause may consist in the conservative attitude of the professionals in the field of cultural heritage.

Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
doi.org/10.18146/tmg.137
Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis

Nyirubugara, Olivier. (2015). Gedigitaliseerd maar onbenut: Erfgoedwebsites en het geschiedenisonderwijs. Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis, 14(2), 69–92. doi:10.18146/tmg.137