The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project - A Landmark Digital Initiative
The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project began in 2015. It is an international initiative to digitize all of YIVO’s prewar library and archival collections located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania. These materials will be reunited through a dedicated web portal. The project will also digitally reconstruct the historic, private Strashun Library of Vilna, one of the great prewar libraries of Europe.
In May 2017, YIVO discovered in Vilnius, Lithuania, more than 170,000 new documents lost to history for over 70 years and thought to have been destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The entire Vilna Collections now encompass some 12,200 rare books and approximately 1.5 million original document pages from the Jewish world of Eastern Europe.
To learn about opportunities to support the project, please contact:
Melissa S. Cohen
Chief Development Officer
(212) 294-6156
Or write to:
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Development Department
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011-6301