HAWaton — competition of high school students in collecting online content

On the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of the Croatian author Ivan Goran Kovačić, the City Library “Ivan Goran Kovačić” Karlovac in cooperation with the National and University Library in Zagreb on 21 March 2023 is organising HAWaton — a competition of high school students in collecting online content. The competition will be held in Karlovac High School, and the task of participants will be to search, evaluate and select web pages related to the character and work of Ivan Goran Kovačić. Participants will, for a limited period of time, collect links to the web pages using computers, while respecting the selection criteria for cataloguing and archiving in the Croatian Web Archives.

This participative way of learning and gathering information in which the general public is involved, which is overseen by experts, is called civic science, represents the level of crowdsourcing, i.e. the work of the crowd.

The objectives of HAWaton are:

  • • Information literacy of young people
  • • Fostering the development of digital skills
  • • Developing Critical Thinking
  • • Popularisation of digital library services
  • • Promoting concepts of mass support in the context of civic science.

Three classes of Karlovac Gymnasium will participate in HAWaton, and each class will receive one winner, i.e. the person who has collected the largest number of the most accurate online content about Ivan Goran Kovačić in due time. The winners of HAWaton expect valuable prizes that will be awarded at the school library of Karlovac Gymnasium the same day after classes.

The final product of HAWaton will be the production and publication of the thematic collection “Ivan Goran Kovačić” on the Croatian Web Archives. The content of the collection will refer to the character and work of the aforementioned writer, and it is the participants of the HAWaton that will be the main creators of the content. The thematic collection will be published in open access and available to all future researchers interested in the life of Ivan Goran Kovačić.

The National and University Library in Zagreb participates in the organisation through the departments of the Croatian Web Archives (abbreviated by HAW), the Customer Service and the European Documentation Centre. Partners organised by HAWaton are the Karlovac Gymnasium, the Representation of the European Commission in the Republic of Croatia and Europe Direct Karlovac.

This is an event and an opportunity for the Ivan Goran Kovačić City Library to celebrate 60 years since it was named after this famous author.