Learn to work with the Allika archive
Free practical guides using Oandu history and Allika photographs: check a claim, record a source and distinguish observation from assumption.
Created for Allika, these resources support independent learning, local-history research and shared discussion. No account, donation or visit is needed. Each guide includes a worked example, a worksheet to copy and an exercise with an explained answer. These are learning resources, not professional training or construction instructions.
What does an archival source actually prove? →
Read the catalogue record for the Piiritusevabriku A11 plan and write a claim another reader can check.
Learn to record catalogue metadata, information read from a document and your own inference separately. This example concerns Oandu in Lüganuse, Ida-Virumaa, not the place with the same name in Lääne-Virumaa.
Turn a photograph into a usable historical record →
Using Allika's sauna and greenhouse: separate what is visible, what the caption supplies and what remains unknown.
Create a descriptive record for one photograph that can later be compared with another image. Start with the published photograph here; no new photography or entry into a building is required.
Continue in the archive
Start by identifying the place →
The Oandu name history helps distinguish a village, period and spelling. It does not automatically date a farm.
Compare a plan with its interpretation →
Our account of the Piiritusevabriku A11 plan explains how one document relates to the Allika investigation and which questions remain open.
Examine present-day traces →
The restoration diary provides photographs for your own observation notes. A photograph's date is not necessarily the date of the work.
Practise noticing nature →
Six attention exercises for independent use, without needing to visit Allika.