A new dataset titled ‘Interviews with System Operators and Users of the Polish BBSes,’ authored by Michał Owczarek, has been published in the QDA. The dataset includes 19 anonymised transcripts of individual interviews with the system operators and users of the Polish BBSes. BBSes were computer servers connected via telephone line. They were used as a social media before the internet, the users were sharing knowledge, software and sense of community in the decentralized fashion. The interviews were conducted from November 2023 to February 2025 with the people engaged in the BBS culture in the 90s. The interviews were part of the project funded by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland, under the PRELUDIUM BIS funding scheme. The PI of the grant was Professor Mirosław Filiciak (SWPS University).

A new dataset titled ‘The Spatiality of Urban Safety and Care. A Qualitative Study of Young Women’s Life Trajectories in Argentina,’ authored by Anna Bednarczyk, has been published in the QDA. The project from which the data originates explored the intersection of gender-based violence, urban safety, and care networks in the lives of young women living in both middle-class and marginalized neighbourhoods in Córdoba, Argentina. The project was funded by the National Science Centre (NCN), Poland, under the PRELUDIUM funding scheme. The dataset contains anonymised transcripts of individual and group interviews conducted in 2022 with 29 individuals (in Spanish).

On 26 February, the Oral History Seminar was held at IFiS PAN. Participants discussed two interviews with a Ukrainian refugee woman, conducted in 2023 and 2024 by Dr. Anna Wylegała, Professor at IFiS PAN, as part of the Testimonies from the War (U-CORE) project. Information on the two phases of the project can be found at https://swiadectwawojny2022.org/en/ and https://u-core.org/en/. The discussion also covered the methodology and ethical considerations involved in collecting and sharing this type of material.

The Oral History Seminars are co-organized by the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw, the Qualitative Data Archive at IFiS PAN, and the Polish Oral History Association. The initiative is under the patronage of the “Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej” („Wrocław Yearbook of Oral History”). If you would like to participate in future meetings or receive more information, please contact us at: seminariumoralhistory@gmail.com.

On 22 January, the Oral History Seminar was held at IFiS PAN, during which Dr. Marek Szajda (“Remembrance and Future” Centre, The Depot History Centre (Wroclaw); POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Warsaw)) presented an interview with a social and environmental activist from Lower Silesia. The interview was conducted as part of a project aimed at documenting the manifestations of social activity dedicated to counteracting environmental degradation and protecting nature in Poland, using the Western Sudetes as a case study.

The Oral History Seminars are co-organized by the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw, the Qualitative Data Archive at IFiS PAN, and the Polish Oral History Association. The initiative is under the patronage of the “Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej” („Wrocław Yearbook of Oral History”). If you would like to participate in future meetings or receive more information, please contact us at: seminariumoralhistory@gmail.com.

Maciej Melon and Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek from the QDA participated in the conference ‘Poland in European and World Research Infrastructures,’ organised by the Centre for Research on Families and Generations at the Warsaw School of Economics (WSE) and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The event took place at the WSE on January 16–17, 2025. On the second day of the conference, which focused on infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities, the QDA representatives presented the Social Data Repository.

The QDA has published a new dataset entitled ‘Sociolinguistics of the Caquetá-Putumayo River Basins Dataset.’ It is based on genealogical data from seven Indigenous groups across three language families—Witotoan (Murui-Muina, encompassing two varieties: Murui and Mɨnɨka; Ocaina; Nonuya), Boran (Bora; Muinane), and Arawak (Resígaro)—as well as one linguistic isolate, Andoke, in the Caquetá-Putumayo River Basins of Colombia. Data was collected during fieldwork conducted in Leticia, Colombia, in 2024 by linguist Dr. Katarzyna I. Wojtylak under the SONATA 16 funding scheme of the (Polish) National Science Centre (NCN).

The dataset contains individual genealogical information, as well as data on familial relationships, marital ties, and linguistic repertoires. It is part of the cross-disciplinary project ‘Social Limits of Languages: The Dynamics of Contact in Northwest Amazonia,’ which aims to develop a framework for analysing diffusion patterns in language contact scenarios among the Indigenous languages of the Caquetá-Putumayo region.

The QDA has published a new dataset entitled ‘Paltry Pensions’ in the Context of the Sense of Social Justice and the Goals of Pension Policy. It contains qualitative data from a project focused on retirees receiving pensions lower than the minimum pension from the Polish Social Security Institution (ZUS) — so-called ‘paltry’ or ‘penny’ pensions. The project is currently being carried out at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and is funded by the National Science Center in Poland. The dataset includes transcriptions of individual interviews with pensioners and experts, as well as parliamentary documents and articles from selected news portals concerning pensions lower than the minimum pension. The authors of the dataset are Dr. Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek, Piotr Drygas, Ewa Potępa, Dr. Klaudia Wolniewicz-Słomka, and Dr. Marta Kołczyńska.

On December 18, an Oral History Seminar was held at IFiS PAN. Participants analyzed two interviews recorded with women born in 1935 in Gdańsk. These interviews are part of the “Gdańszczanie” (“Inhabitants of Gdańsk”) collection, which is deposited in the Gdańsk Oral History Archive (GAHM) at the Museum of Gdańsk.
The interviews were selected, and an introduction was provided by Dr. Andrzej Hoja—a historian, archivist, curator, and the creator and coordinator of GAHM. Dr. Hoja is also an expert at the Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

The Oral History Seminars are co-organized by the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw, the Qualitative Data Archive at IFiS PAN, and the Polish Oral History Association. The initiative is under the patronage of the “Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej” („Wrocław Yearbook of Oral History)”. If you would like to participate in future meetings or receive more information, please contact us at: seminariumoralhistory@gmail.com.

A new dataset titled ‘Orientation Systems in Public Transportation and the Cultural Dimension of Uncertainty Avoidance – A Behavioral and Semiotic Analysis of Selected European Cities,’ authored by Dr. Kamil Olender of the University of Wroclaw, has been published in the QDA. The dataset contains materials produced under the ‘Miniatura’ grant of the National Science Center, Poland. The study evaluated orientation systems in public transportation in the context of the identity elements of the city and region. The theoretical background of the project was based on Geert Hofstede’s concept of cultural dimensions.

On November 29, 2024, Maciej Melon from the QDA team and Magdalena Bielinska from the Open Science Platform operating within the Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling at the UW conducted an online training on research data management and the use of the Social Data Repository (https://rds.icm.edu.pl/). The training was intended for employees of the University of Lodz Library and was divided into two parts: a discussion of the basics of research data management with a presentation of the repository, and instructions for depositing a sample dataset.