Cultural Content and Digital Heritage

1. Cultural Content and Digital Heritage Bernard Smith European Commission INFSO/D2

2. 4 Thematic Programmes • Quality of life and management of living resources • User-friendly Information Society • Competitive and sustainable growth • Energy, environment and sustainable development Two essential elements: high-quality research and international co-operation

3. International Cooperation • 30-31 fully participating countries: -the 15 EU Member States -Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Israel, -Switzerland (by 2001) -the 11 accession countries • All programmes are open for international co-operation on a project-by-project basis • Science & Technology Agreements with USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, etc.

4. IST (1998-2002) • Key actions: • systems and services for the citizen • new methods of work and electronic commerce • multimedia content and tools • essential technologies and infrastructures • future and emerging technologies • networks for researchers Accessibility, usability, affordability, dependability, interoperability

5. IST (1998-2002)

6. IST (1998-2002) • 646 Meuro for Systems and Services for the Citizen • 547 Meuro for New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce • 564 Meuro for Multimedia Content and Tools • 1363 Meuro for Essential Technologies and Infrastructures • 319 Meuro for generic RTD activities • 161 Meuro for Research Infrastructures

7. Multimedia Content & Tools • Interactive electronic publishing • Digital heritage and cultural content • Education and training • Human language technologies • Information access, filtering, analysis and handling Striking a balance between competitiveness and the emerging cultural economy

8. “access to scientific and cultural content through the networking of libraries, archives and museums” Building compelling and inclusive cultural landscapes in Europe extract from the 5th Framework Programme

9. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 1st Call • Action Line III.2.3: “Access to Cultural Heritage” • opened: 15 March 1999, and closed: 16 June 1999 • total cost of all proposals: 240 Meuro • total requested funding: 133 Meuro • total number of participations: 619 • number of proposals: 73 • number of selected proposals: 13 • number of RTD projects: 11 • number of accompanying measures: 2 Factual Data

10. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 1st Call • total cost of selected projects: 33.9 Meuro • total funding of selected projects: 19.8 Meuro • total number of participants: 134 • total number of person-years: 320 approx. • average size of RTD projects: 1.7 Meuro funding • average number of participants per RTD project: 8 • average person-months per RTD project: 310 Factual Data

11. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 1st Call Participation in projects

12. Digital Heritage & Cultural Content Covers: • access, search and retrieval functionalities • resource discovery and meta-data • thematic collections and subject gateways (portals) • distributed and multi-owned collections • distributed databases and data-interoperability Digital Libraries Projects focus on ‘cross-domain content navigation’ including core content collections and methods of accessing them

13. Digital Heritage & Cultural Content Covers: • innovative Web-based services • visual representations using streaming video, animation, 3-D and VR • enhancing learning and game playing • improving user interaction and understanding Visualisation Projects focus on how users can interact with cultural content, or surrogates of such content

14. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 1st Call • EL - Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Foundation of the Hellenic World., Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens • UK - Victoria and Albert Museum, The National Gallery, London and South Eastern Library Region, The Library and Information Commission, British Broadcasting Corporation • I - The Uffizi Gallery, A&C 2000 s.r.l., Osservatorio dei Programmi Internazionale per le Biblioteche, Instituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico, Ministero Beni e Acttivita Culturali, Instuto Trentino di Cultura, Instituto Luce spa, Biblioteca di documentazione Pedagogica Cultural Institutions

15. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 1st Call • F - Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, Institut National de l’Audiovisual (co-ordinator of Brava and in ECHO), Bibliotheque Nationale de France • DK - Tycho Brahe Planetarium and Omnimaxteater, Technical Knowledge Center & Library of Denmark • B - Limburgse Volkssterrenwacht - Europanetarium - Georama, Observatoire Royal de Belgique - Planetarium, Federal Office for Science, Technical and Cultural Affairs • P - RTP Radiotelevisão Portuguesa S.A., Fundo de Formento Cultural, Biblioteca Nacional

16. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 1st Call • D - Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut (co-ordinator of Cultivate-EU and partner in Reynard), Institut für Film und Bild GmbH, Deutsches Museum Bonn • IRL - The Library Council • A - Cultural Service Centre Austria • E - Biblioteca Nacional, Subdirección General de los Archivos Estatales, Subdirección General de los Museos Estatales • S - The Royal Library - National Library of Sweden • NL - Stichting Nederlands Audiovisueel Archief, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (co-ordinator of Reynard)

17. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 1st Call • HU - Hungarian Academy of Science (in DELOS) • RU - Russian Academy of Science (in DELOS) • USA - VidiPax Inc. (in BRAVA), Carnegie Mellon University (in ECHO) • NO - University of Science and Technology (in DELOS), National Office for Research Documentation, Academic and Special Libraries (in Cultivate-EU) • IL - Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs (in Cultivate-EU), MAKASH (in ETB) • CH - Federal Institute of Technology (in DELOS), Eurospinder (in DELOS and ECHO), Memoriav (in ECHO) International Co-operation

18. Cultural Heritage Overview of the 2nd Call • a cost effective approach to the preservation of broadcast archives, a WWW-based collaborative work environment for historical film material, and a demonstration of a digital media asset management system for archival video • new technologies to record, catalogue, conserve, restore and present archaeological artefacts, monuments and sites • tools and methods for the digital conversion of old printed material • a handheld visitor guide for archaeological sites • improvement of professional skills of librarians in Central and eastern Europe in the area of licensing Initial Trends

19. Work Programme 2000 • Authoring interactive web content • Personalising content • Access to digital collections of cultural and scientific content • Virtual representations of cultural and scientific objects • School of tomorrow • The learning citizen • Natural interactivity • Cross-lingual information management and knowledge discovery • Multilingual communication services and appliances • Content processing for domestic and mobile multimedia platforms • Information visualisation

20. Work Programme 2000 • Trials and test-beds for digital content authoring and personalising systems • Trails on new access modes to cultural and scientific content • Trials and best practice addressing advanced solutions for on-the-job training in SMEs • Trials and best practice in multilingual e-serves and e-commerce • Trails and best practice in information access, filtering, analysis and handling Working groups and dissemination and awareness actions • Virtual representation and preservation of cultural and scientific objects, including relevant policy issues

21. Project Models “Hard” RTD project: • ambitious flagship project with medium to long-term objectives • identifiable technology challenges for researchers and a concrete cultural application environment • new alliances between academics, research centres, and content and technology providers • strong technology team responsible for research and technology development, and bring a major financial commitment to the project • content owners provide requirement, validation, demonstration, testing and final service applications

22. Project Models “Soft” RTD project: • consensus-driven project aiming at creating a sustainable EU-wide cultural infrastructure • challenges is with the integration of available technology components to create new services • new alliances between many institutional players • issues such as management and organisational change, new business and data models, evolving role of public services, etc. are as important as research and technological development • consortium demonstrates unique content ownership and proven ability to deliver value-added services

23. Project Models Network of excellence: • consensus building network constantly able to evolve, and open to international co-operation • creates a large and sustainable EU-wide intellectual and technical infrastructure • complex collection of interrelated tasks, and including an on-going EU research agenda Working groups: • simple platform for co-operation with short-term, well focused objectives • the first steps in confidence building, creating consensus and co-operative working

24. Work Programme 2000 • Warning signs • digitisation proposal: suggestions to provide access but is really just a simple digitisation proposal • technology proposal: just looking at a technology component with little or no context of how the cultural sector works, or at best applied to “general cultural heritage” • access proposal: “business as usual” to create portals or Web sites • cultural proposal: focus on unique or valuable physical objects but having no understanding of the technology aspects • problem statement proposals: recognises the problem, but does not indicate a clear way to find a solution • “ignore everyone else” proposal: no state-of-the-art and no references to other work • “echo” proposals: echo the call text, the guidelines, ...

25. Work Programme 2000 III.1.5. Trials on new access modes to cultural and scientific content Domains of interest include new navigation tools, wireless access to the Web, improved visualisation of artefacts and collections, community building for thematic collections, etc. In all cases the trails should be driven by an authentic need as expressed by a well-defined user profile. These activities will be pursued in collaboration with other programmes and initiatives at national and regional level.

26. Work Programme 2000 • Trials on new access modes • for memory organisations to “learn by doing” • not research but real-life experimentation addressing an authentic user need • building on existing actions by adding an additional technology trial • Issues: • cultural and scientific content and context • adding value to existing collections and services • related to on-going national, regional and/or local programmes • serve as a model for others test, evaluate, explore

27. Work Programme 2000 • Content • involving real users in real-life situations • different media sources: video, film, sound, text, image • building on existing resources • held in Europe's memory institutions • Issues: • high-quality, rarity, uniqueness of originals, preservation, ... • trying to create a new experience for the user, citizen, vistor, ... • being an example for others technology experiments with cultural resources

28. Work Programme 2000 III.1.6. Virtual representations of cultural and scientific objects To explore and experiment with novel ways of creating, manipulating, managing and presenting new classes of intelligent, dynamically adaptive and self-aware digital cultural objects, either held by memory institutions (archives, libraries, museums, etc.) or directly involving digital born objects or art forms The focus is user-centred and includes user interaction and models for interactivity with high-quality virtual representations of valuable cultural objects and the creation and navigation of virtual cultural and scientific landscapes

29. Work Programme 2000 III.1.6. Virtual representations of cultural and scientific objects The work should focus on and result in the sustainable development of valuable digital repositories in Europe’s libraries, museums and archives. This includes models for future virtual collections and guidelines for integrating real and virtual objects and collections. It should provide examples of how dynamic user interaction with the cultural and scientific content can enhance the user experience. It addresses the experiences of learning, exploring and entertaining for the user.

30. Work Programme 2000 • Virtual representations of cultural and scientific objects • real-life experimentation in authentic situations • new models for interactivity • solutions must be sustainable and make the most of unique and/or distributed resources • Issues: • complex dynamic digital cultural objects, including context • models for future virtual collections • creating a new experience which informs, educates and entertains stimulate the imagination and vision - be a focus for research and learning

31. Work Programme 2000 • Content • for citizens and for scientific analysis • different media sources: video, film, sound, text, image • available in distributed heterogeneous collections held in Europe's memory institutions • or new digitally born art forms • Issues: • high-quality, rarity, uniqueness of originals, preservation, ... • a radically new quality of access driven by the research problem - not the cultural resource

32. Work Programme 2000 Remember real needs - solutions that people want research with a purpose - meeting a challenge realistic objectives - practical results replicability of results - solutions that others can use right team - develop new alliances reinforce - the value and visibility of our cultural institutions

33. e-mail: bernard.smith@cec.eu.int www.europa.eu.int www.cordis.lu www.ispo.cec.be www.echo.lu/digicult Thank you