Marianas during the German times now online

The cultural heritage of the CNMI took a major leap into the digital age when the online version of An Annotated Bibliography of German Language Sources on the Mariana Islands was launched yesterday, giving anyone access to documents relating to the German occupation of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The CNMI Council for Humanities, together with the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs’ Division of Historic Preservation and the Charles Sturt University in Albury, Australia, launched yesterday the online digital library, allowing most of the items listed in the bibliography to be delivered as a scanned image file to users. In total, the compendium contains 1648 entries, with copied material exceeding 11,400 pages. As part of the project, the 27-volume “Compendium of the German Colonial Literatures in the Marianas” is now available through the site.

The website address is www.marshall.csu.edu.au.

Charles Sturt University’s Dirk Spenneman presented the website yesterday afternoon to Gov. Juan N. Babauta, who was joined by DCCA Secretary Juan L. Babauta and the rest of the DCCA officers and staff. The Humanities Council funded the project.

Spenneman said the server for the website is at the Charles Sturt University, with the university giving the CNMI the server space and its maintenance for free.

“This is the university’s continuing service and commitment to the regional engagement with the CNMI,” he said.

According to Spenneman, the project started in 2001. He said CNMI Museum of History and Culture board member Scott Russell introduced the project to him and it was in 2002 when they finished the first phase of the project, which was photocopying the documents. The second phase involved compilation of the photocopied materials. He said the second phase took a long time to finish since he had to read all the materials.

Spenneman said it was a Herculean task and a challenge for him to extract the materials by reading all of them and publishing them online.

“You have to be thorough,” he said. He said there were times he had to use the photocopying machine for two hours.

The 27-volume photocopied materials were then scanned one at a time, for uploading as softcopy for website development. Spenneman also designed the website himself. He said he used basic HTML website programming language to develop the site because of its simplicity.

Spenneman said the HTML version adheres to the objectives of having a website that is simple, reliable, and fast. He added that HTML codes are easier to maintain. The website contains a navigation window that would link the user to information about the document such as history, administration, bibliography, and anthropology, among others.