The Fleischmann Diaries Online Archive

News of a digitisation project from Cork:

The Fleischmann Diaries Online Archive: 
http://fleischmanndiaries.ucc.ie

The digitised 1926 and 1927 diaries of Irish composer, Aloys Fleischmann

The digitised 1926 and 1927 diaries of the Irish composer, Aloys Fleischmann (1910 – 1992) were launched on Wednesday, 20th November 2013 in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, O'Rahilly Building G27, University College Cork (UCC), Ireland. The project was launched by Róisín O’Brien on behalf of the Digital Arts and Humanities Program, with Dr Ruth Fleischmann as the guest of honour. The Program was outlined, the digitisation process explained and the diaries, part of the extensive Fleischmann Collection housed in the Archives at UCC, introduced.

Aloys Fleischmann (1910-1992) was born into a family of immigrant German musicians resident in Cork since 1879. His maternal grandfather, Hans Conrad Swertz, had come from the Bavarian town of Dachau to take up a post as organist and choirmaster. The second of his nine children, Tilly, born in Cork in 1882, studied in Munich at the Royal Academy of Music from 1901-1905; she married the Dachau organist and composer Aloys Fleischmann, who came to Cork with her the following year to take over her father’s position at the cathedral.

Their son Aloys was to become a composer, musicologist, scholar of traditional Irish music, professor of music at University College Cork 1934-1980, founder and conductor of the Cork Symphony Orchestra 1934-1992, founder of the Cork Orchestral Society in 1938, of the Cork International Choral Festival and its director for 20 years, provider of music for the Cork Ballet Company for 45 years, chairman of the Cork Sculpture Park for 24 years, and a life-long campaigner to bring classical music into the schools and lives of Irish people.

The sources of this commitment to the cause of the arts in Ireland can be traced in the diaries written by the boy during his last two years at school. About 200 photographs selected from Tilly Fleischmann’s albums illustrate the diaries.

The public is invited to visit the website; high-resolution images of the diaries and accompanying illustrations can be downloaded.

The digitisation of the diaries was undertaken by Róisín O’Brien as a thesis project for the Masters Degree in Digital Arts and Humanities at UCC. It was carried out with the collaboration of the Fleischmann family and guidance of a number of international practitioners. In addition to the digital preservation of fragile artefacts through photography and online publication, the aim of the project was to create a freely available digitisation prototype for scholars and non-experts, providing them with a reproducible model. A dissertation, “Digitising the Diaries of Aloys Fleischmann: a prototype for novices”, which documents the technical process and establishes a theoretical basis for the project, will be distributed as an Open Access publication at the Cork Open Research Archive in 2013.

To view the Fleischmann Diaries Online Archive, please visit: http://fleischmanndiaries.ucc.ie

For further information about the launch, please contact: Róisín O’Brien roisinaobrien@gmail.com

(With thanks to Róisín O'Brien)

Chris

My latest book, Discover Scottish Civil Registration Records, is now available from http://www.gould.com.au (print) and http://www.gen-ebooks.com/unlock-the-past.html (ebook), whilst Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet is available at http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-History-on-the-Internet/p/3889/.