Memoria Chilena provides free and open access through the Internet to the collections of the National Library of Chile. More than 2,500 books, an over-57,500 press articles archive, plus thousands of images, maps and audiovisual archives that give shape to Chilean cultural identity are made readily available to the public around the world, in a user-friendly and appealing milieu where historic, literary and artistic documents are put into context. By interweaving individual discourses into a symbolic common-ground, Memoria Chilena acts as a dynamic ad integrative gateway to national cultural heritage, thus encouraging its preservation and study.
In the year of the Bicentenary (200 years since the born of Chile), Memoria Chilena is betting on strengthening the nation’s memory by providing the community with a record from which it may begin reconstruction, conservation and promotion. Its objectives aim to provide access to remote users of cultural and heritage goods managed by the State, allowing for the decentralization of knowledge and culture. Likewise, the project aims to increase and diversify educational content published on the Internet and to contribute to the use of new information technologies, especially in economically vulnerable areas of the population. In this way it promotes the learning of history and national literature going from information to knowledge through the publication of research, catalogues, maps, engravings, photographs, audio recordings and audiovisual material. At the same time, Memoria Chilena constitutes a Virtual Library which reduces the distance between heritage goods and users, thus favoring the preservation of these collections.
Decentralization and mass access to DIBAM heritage collections. Access to digital copies of the first editions of library treasures that are only available to users on microfilm at the National Library. Access to the text with its original format as an E-Book which is easily downloadable. A wide iconographic selection (in JPG format) of milestones and characters from our country’s history. Sound files on MP3 which allow the user to become familiar with some of the most important poems from national history read by their authors. Access to 51,294 press clippings on literary criticism (there're more in other categories) which widen the contents developed by Memoria Chilena. These publications favor training for the teaching of research methodologies, through a pattern of in-depth information and links leading to original documents and other related topics.
Memoria Chilena works with children thanks to his site www.chileparaninos.cl. There the personage "Memoriosal" teaches them across adventures, history, images, flash files of our illustrious ones, natural history, birds of the country and more in his language and with a design for them. In addition there is a club "Memoriosa", where the children register and there are part of workshops of illustration, print and others. In addition every month we unload the e-mail of www.chileparaninos.cl and we answer personally to each one, having a database of 8.000 children with whom we interact month a month.
In all that the women, men and seniors, our public bases on investigators been interested in historical files, occasional readers and people with desires to access to certain books for a specific need. This need is reflected in 5.500.000 downloads that we had the year 2009.
National winner of the Stockholm Challenge, Category Organizations with High impact on the Society Mention Culture, year 2003.
Finalist in the International Stockholm Challenge, Category culture, year 2004.
Prize APES (Journalist Association of Spectacles) to Better web site, category culture, year 2007.
Prize "Queveo" infantile category (for www.chileparaninos.cl), year 2010.
