ZagrebNet – a portal for the photographs collections of the Zagreb City Museum and a platform for digital storytelling

ZagrebNet is a portal where you can browse and search digitised historical photographs and postcards of Zagreb. The photographs we publish are part of the photographic collections of the Zagreb City Museum. Objects in museum collections are a source of information and hold many stories. "A picture is worth a thousand words" is a proverb to which museumists might add: "A photograph can be put into a thousand stories". Hence, along with the photographs and their basic information, we also run stories associated with them. We use stories to mark important dates and anniversaries, sketch stories from the city life, stories about the origin and disappearance of streets and buildings, and stories about people who lived and worked in Zagreb or were connected to our city in other ways.

The aim of the ZagrebNet project is to present the cultural heritage of Zagreb, while rediscovering the visual identity of its streets, squares, buildings, events and people. Photographs that are collected, stored and researched in the collections of the Zagreb City Museum, digitised and published, are now available to you.

With this project, we will enable you to search independently and easily for photographs in the photographic collections and provide you with a new insight into the city's past. We believe that the published photographs will be a source of information for researchers, students, pupils and every person who wants to grow their knowledge throughout life. We want devotees of old photography to find delight and create new memories, and for the creative people to find ideas for new projects.

We value your feedback which you may provide by completing a survey or sending it via email. We would appreciate your comments and we invite you to send us your personal stories related to the published photographs. We hope for an active and productive cooperation.

ZagrebNet was envisioned as a dynamic website with a great potential in the following:

• expansion of its current framework and realisations
• user communication
• scope and methodology of posting
• creating virtual reality

By working together and continuously publishing content, we hope to achieve the goals and reach the full potential of this project.