Hereditas Platform

Hereditas Platform

Catalogue of sources across Europe and the Caucasus

Multilingual catalogue of sources and collections relating to folklore, traditional culture, vernacular beliefs and related areas of cultural heritage

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Public interface in development The working catalogue is already being built and used for data verification and normalization

About Platform

Hereditas Platform helps locate sources dispersed across archives, libraries, museums, universities, digital collections, publications and research projects

Geographic coverage includes Europe and the Caucasus, including regional, historical-cultural and transborder contexts

What the catalogue contains

  • books, articles and bibliographies
  • manuscripts and archival records
  • archival, museum and library collections
  • audio and video recordings
  • fieldwork and expedition materials
  • digital libraries and repositories
  • research datasets and reports

How the data are organized

Canonical catalogue

Verified and normalized resources with stable identifiers

Integration queue

Candidates, possible duplicates and records that still require review

Research reports

Regional and thematic materials preserving context and data provenance

Data principles

  • source forms are preserved after normalization
  • ambiguous matches are not merged automatically
  • institutions, platforms, resources and authors remain separate entities
  • record and relationship provenance remains traceable
  • automated matches may require human review
  • rights and access restrictions are handled separately

Current dataset

As of 31 July 2026 Hereditas Platform contains 3,558 entries

  • 1,792 canonical resources
  • 1,640 integration-queue records
  • 126 research reports
  • 48 countries and territories
  • 745 regions
  • 72 languages

Integration-queue records are not automatically considered verified or distinct new resources

Next stage

Data cleanup, source and URL verification, development of multilingual authorities and preparation of the public interface

In the future Platform can also index metadata from partner collections while preserving institutional identifiers, provenance and access rules

Collaboration

We welcome collaboration with archives, museums, libraries, universities and researchers

  • new sources and collections
  • metadata corrections
  • updates to outdated URLs
  • regional and multilingual terminology
  • academic review of selected sections
  • future connection of institutional catalogues

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