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One of the funded project proposals under DARIAH’s Open Humanities call 2015 was “Open History: Sustainable digital publishing of archival catalogues of twentieth-century history archives”. Based on the experiences of the Collaborative EuropeaN Digital Archival Research Infrastructure (CENDARI) and the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), the main goal of the “Open History” project was to enhance the dialogue between (meta-)data providers and research infrastructures. Integrating archival descriptions – when they were already available – held at a wide variety of twentieth-century history archives (from classic archives to memorial sites, libraries and private archives) into research infrastructures has proven to be a major challenge, which could not be done without some degree of limited to extensive pre-processing or other preparatory work. The “Open History” project organized two workshops and developed two tools: an easily accessible and general article on why the practice of standardization and sharing is important and how this can be achieved; and a model which provides checklists for self-analyses of archival institutions. The text that follows is the article we have developed. It intentionally remains at a general level, without much jargon, so that it can be easily read by those who are non-archivists or non-IT. Hence, we hope it will be easy to understand for both those who are describing the sources at various archives (with or without IT or archival sciences degrees), as well as decision-makers (directors and advisory boards) who wish to understand the benefits of investing in standardization and sharing of data. It is important to note is that this text is a first step, not a static, final result. Not all aspects about standardization and publication of (meta-)data are discussed, nor are updates or feedback mechanisms for annotations and comments discussed. The idea is that this text can be used in full or in part and that it will include further chapters and section updates as time goes by and as other communities begin using it. Some archives will read through much of these and see confirmation of what they have already been implementing; others – especially the smaller institutions, such as private memory institutions – will find this a low-key and hands-on introduction to help them in their efforts. International audience

DARIAH, the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities, aims to enhance and support digitally-enabled research and teaching across the humanities and arts. By bringing together national activities from Member countries, DARIAH is able to offer a portfolio of services and activities centred around research communities. DARIAH was established as a European legal entity in August 2014 with 15 countries - Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Slovenia and Serbia – as Founding Members. This was an important step towards developing a research infrastructure for sharing and sustaining digital arts and humanities knowledge across Europe and beyond. Using the opportunity to present a poster at DH Benelux 2015 as a starting point, the authors would like to explore how DARIAH-BE, DARIAH-LU and DARIAH-NL could collaborate to both strengthen their participation in DARIAH within their individual countries and together as the Benelux region. Initial ideas include: a) increasing collaboration between researchers and infrastructure providers: taking advantage of the geographical proximity and language synergies to participate in shared activities e.g. joint research projects and training events, b) increasing funding opportunities: exploring regional possibilities for funding and establishing partnerships for European funding proposals and c) sharing DARIAH knowledge and experience: increasing understanding and identifying synergies between the DARIAH activities in each country. Through strengthening the collaboration between DARIAH activities in Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands, we would like to facilitate maximum participation of digital humanities researchers in the Benelux region in DARIAH in order to take full advantage of the benefits of being part of the European DARIAH community. International audience