The Norwegian Digitalarkivet with new design
The Norwegian Digitalarkivet – “The Digital archive”, today launched their newly re-designed website.
“Why do they have to keep changing this all the time”, you may say. According to the Digitalarkivet blog, one of the main reasons is that the Digitalarkivet has been integrated with the National archives website. These are two limbs on the same body so in many ways it was a good thing. It meant, however, that changes in one often had consequences for the other. With this re-design it is not only the visual design that has changed, but the two websites have also split up and are now two separate technical systems. This makes it easier to update and enhance the quality of the websites.
The new address is https://digitalarkivet.no/en/
I think the new design looks good. Instead of the cluttered opening page, the main sources are presented through a few headlines/links. Make sure to check out the “Menu” button top right, where more of the sources are accessed.
The search page has the same fields with a new design, but the results are presented different in the new design
The individual results page is also re-designed and I think the information is presented in a very nice and easily accessible way:
The link “urn_id” brings you to the page in the source that contains this particular information. Note; This link is not yet available for all search results.
Note the “Share” link above the green “source information box”. This link makes it easy to share this page through email, Google+, Facebook or Twitter.
Some of the features are not yet available in English. I am sure this will be implemented as soon as possible. If you are used to searching the Digitalarkivet and know a few essential words in Norwegian, you may be able to use the Norwegian interface until the translation is in place.
Links to sources. If you have used page links to Digitalarkivet as sources in your genealogy material; Links to scanned material such as church records should still be valid. Links to transcribed material such as a census record may have been broken due to the redesign of the website. The feature that was put in place to re-route these links did not kick in. Officials from the Digitalarkivet comment on a user forum tonight that actions are taken to try to restore these links. UPDATE JUNE 11 It seems like the slinks to the censuses have been restored
All in all, I think the new design looks nice. The sources are easily accessible. Most of all I am excited about the possibilities the new technical solution gives for new developments and enhancements. Everything in an effort to give us more and better search results.
UPDATE June 11. 2017. Having monitored the Digitalarkivet User’s discussion forum it seems like there, due to popular demand will be some additional updates. Some of these will bring certain layouts closer to the way they were before June 6. re-design.
I will probably come back with more on how to use the Digitalarkivet as I have had a chance to work with this new solution.
If you have questions about or problems with the new solution, comment below and maybe we’ll be able to figure it out together.
Thanks for the article . . .and we will need MANY more! This will be my 3rd iteration of Digitarkivet . . and I’m having trouble. Looking at my ggrandfather’s emigration — I find no list of other people, no ‘previous-next’, and no way to find the other people traveling on the same boat on the same day. ONLY the original Digitarkivet provided this information. I used the old site to search by year . . something I could never get the second site to do. I even tried copy & past of the exact date from site1 to site2 and it never worked.
I truly enjoy helping others find their Norwegian ancestore . . but this change is just frustrating! Just give me a list of resources available and let me search!
Hello Trudy, Thanks for visiting my blog and for taking the time to comment. Changes are frustrating. I put in a little work today and admit it was a little awkward to use the new interface. We’ll have to help each other out. The good thing about this change is that the administrators have much more freedom to develope the website. And, I suppose, it will be easier for them to implement features suggested by us, the users.
Trudy, the old website had “previous” and “next” (forrige and neste). Which worked well if you wanted to see the names of children or spouses or other relatives who were emigrating. But you can do it in the new website in an awkward way. If you find someone, and the number in the URL is something like 000001256718, then you can change it to 000001256719 or 000001256720. It’s less convenient than “previous” and “next.”
Hello Todd. Thanks for visiting my blog and for taking the time to comment. It is a smart workaround you suggest. Having monitored the Digitalarkivet’s user forum, I get the impression that the “previous” and “next” (forrige and neste) feature will be put back in place. I looked at a record in the emigrant material tonight and see that the graphics are in place, but the links is not “live”
Martin,
I want to let you know that your wonderful blog post is listed in today’s Genealogy Fab Finds post at http://janasgenealogyandfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2017/06/janas-genealogy-fab-finds-for-june-9.html
Have a great weekend!
Thanks for your continuous support Jana! It is highly appreciated.