Sunday, January 30, 2011
   Largest Digital Archive of Holocaust Victims: Google's Holocaust collection sets world record
 JERUSALEM, Israel -- Around 130,000 images from the world's largest Holocaust collection have been made available online for the first time by Google in partnership with the Yad Vashem museum in Israel
- setting the new world record for the Largest Digital Archive of Holocaust Victims.

 (enlarge photo)

   The 130,000 pictures made available now show the faces of thousands of Jews, young and old who suffered Nazi persecution and murder before and during the Second World War.

  The Guinness world record for the largest panoramic digital photograph was 15.33 gigapixels with a total area of 3,958.5 m² (42,608.9 ft²) and was created by Michael Høeltermand of SUN-ADvertising (Denmark).

  Guinness World Records also recognized the largest photo mosaic, which measures 1360.81m² (14647.58 ft²) and contains 120,000 individual photographs. It was achieved by Misuzu san san san jikkouiinkai (Japan), in Nagato, Japan.

  In all, Yad Vashem's library holds more than 130 million documents and this move, said the museum's chairman Avner Shalev, is the "first step" towards bringing the whole of the "vast" archive online.  

  Google's collaboration with Israel's Yad Vashem museum to create an online collection of Holocaust documents is part of a growing tend that is putting hard-to-access knowledge online, easing public access and facilitating research.

  Google's experimental optical character recognition (OCR) technology, also used to translate images into digitally legible text by its Goggles application, has been employed in the digitisation project.

  You can search for names in the archive.   Furthermore you can add personal stories below images in the archive

   A spokesman said that, "while not perfect, it will make it possible to search and find specific photographs and other documents".

  The collections are visible at http://collections.yadvashem.org/photosarchive/en-us/photos.html

  Subscribe to our free RSS News feed to receive updates.

  Related world records:
  Largest Flag: Israeli Flag

  Highest price paid for a Victoria Cross: Spink

  Sunday, January 30, 2011