Stand with Ukraine
Obviously, life safety is a top priority for anyone living in Ukraine right now. That said, stories are coming out about heroic museum and library personnel who are literally risking their lives to save heritage. There are many important causes to support and we wanted to inform you about other efforts happening in the country.
We’ll keep this blog updated as we learn about other efforts in the country. From our understanding, financial donations are the best way to support the many efforts happening in Ukraine right now.
This is a comprehensive list from the American Alliance of Museums with information and resource links.
The Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago has a “scan a code, save a life” effort in place, directing donors to resources that can best serve the country. The museum is also hosting community and support groups to talk about the ongoing war.
If you are writing about Ukraine in posts, blogs, etc., be sure to use Ukraine instead of “the Ukraine.” Many of us have been doing it wrong, so take a moment to recognize the sovereign nation with the right name.
SUCHO: Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online is a group of cultural heritage professionals – librarians, archivists, researchers, programmers – working together to identify and archive at-risk sites, digital content, and data in Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions while the country is under attack. We are using a combination of technologies to crawl and archive sites and content, including the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the Browsertrix crawler and the ArchiveWeb.page browser extension and app of the Webrecorder project. Read this Art News article for an update.
Learn about a number of efforts being spearheaded by European museums in this article from The Museum Association.
The Icon Paintings Group is assembling materials to be sent to Ukraine to help with further protecting their cultural heritage. Learn more.
Civilian specialists are tracking threats to landmarks and monuments, akin to the Monument Men of WWII.
Art can make a statement - check out the subversive lighting of the Russian embassy in Lisbon, Portugal.
Follow Oksana Brui (@OksanaBrui) on Twitter - she is the head of the Ukrainian library association and is reporting on the critical role libraries are playing.
The most recent Velocity of Content podcast focuses on the role that libraries are playing in Ukraine.
The journal Curators is reviewing potential war crimes.
Ukrainian museums are being plundered according to this NYT story.