Editorial

‘We are living in a time of rapid transformation – on geopolitical, societal, ecological, and technological levels. While the Austrian Journal of Folklore Studies (Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde ÖZV) is changing at a slower pace, it is doing so steadily and very positively.

With the official launch of the digital platform Online Collection Plus (Online Sammlung Plus) of the Volkskundemuseum Wien (Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art), the ÖZV is now accessible online in a new and special environment. The core idea of this platform is to make not only the collection objects of the Volkskundemuseum Wien searchable and thus usable, but also various publications and archival materials from the museum and the Ethnographic Society (Verein für Volkskunde VfV). With the new platform, all publications of the VfV’s in-house press are now fully accessible – including, of course, the Austrian Journal of Folklore Studies (oezv.volkskundemuseum.at).

All current and past issues of the ÖZV are now assigned individual URNs (Uniform Resource Names). An URN is a persistent identifier that enables permanent and unambiguous referencing of documents, texts, and publications in the digital space. Starting with this issue, the texts in the sections Abhandlungen und Essays as well as neuerDings are each assigned their own URN, which is provided in the form of a persistent link at the end of the respective text. From now on, both issues of a volume will be published online at the same time as the print version and will be presented as separate issues instead of a continuously paginated annual volume.

Further details about the Online Collection Plus platform can be found in the neuerDings section, and more about the extensive preparatory and implementation work in our annual report in the section Berichte und Besprechungen of this issue.

That the ÖZV also gladly accepts and publishes articles in English is demonstrated by the article by Oliwia Murawska in this issue. Through a variety of approaches, she explores the particular connection between sand and atmosphere in Southern Kashubia, thereby contributing to theoretical and methodological reflections on posthumanist approaches.

The two essays in this issue also mark another innovation of the ÖZV: Two student seminar papers, each proposed by members of the editorial team and both seeking to apply – and even expand – the methodological repertoire of our discipline, have been included. Christa Jäger undertakes an art-ethnographic approach to an exhibition in the Innsbruck Imperial Gardens, and Birgit Palasser focuses on the consistently underrepresented field of olfaction, which she explores exemplarily in Viennese stairwells.’

You can read the current issue 1/2025 of the ÖZV here.