The MINERVA framework Antonella Fresa Berlin, 31 August 2004

1. Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activising in digitisation The MINERVA framework Antonella Fresa Berlin, 31 August 2004

2. The MINERVA framework The MINERVA project is the operative section of a wider framework made up with the Lund Principles, the LUND Action Plan and the National Representatives Group (NRG)

3. Representatives and experts from the Member States gathered in order to identify ways in which “a coordination mechanism for digitisation programmes across the Member States” could be put in place to stimulate European cultural content on global networks. Lund Meeting – 4th April 2001

4. The NRG is made up of officially nominated experts from each Member State: to coordinate digitisation policies and programmes; to facilitate the adoption and implementation of the Lund Action Plan; to monitor progress regarding the objectives encapsulated in the Lund Principles. National Representatives Group

5. The NRG meets every 6 months to share national experiences under the aegis of the presidency in turn. National Representatives Group

6. In order to guarantee the continuity of the initiatives undertaken, the past, present and future presidencies of the EU commonly define the so-called “rolling agenda”. The “rolling agenda”

7. MINERVA is the operative arm of the National Representatives Group. It is a network of Member States’ ministries / agencies,. It is financed by the European Commission, IST Programme. What is MINERVA

8. Italy, coordinator (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali) Belgium (Ministère de la Communauté française) Finland (University of Helsinky) France (Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication) Spain (Ministerio de Educaciòn, Cultura y Deporte) Sweden (Riksarkivet) United Kingdom (The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries) Original Partners

9. Greece Czech Republic Austria Hungary Germany Malta Ireland Slovenia Portugal Estonia Poland Russia and Israel New Members of Minerva Plus

10. MINERVA mission • The network has been created to: • to discuss, correlate and harmonise activities carried out in digitisation of cultural and scientific content; • for creating agreed European common recommendations and guidelines about: • digitisation, • metadata, • long-term accessibility, • preservation.

11. to contribute to the creation of a broad consensus on the European framework derived from the e-Europe initiative; to contribute to start up new national programmes of digitisation of cultural heritage; to contribute to create a process of institutional collaboration among the presidencies of the European Union; to create new opportunities of cooperation among the members of the network. Activities

12. 4 Working groups at European level Networking activities (workshops, on-line training, WEB site, newsletter, benchmarking, cooperation with other projects) Publications (guidelines, reports, handbooks, brochures) Enlargement of the network How MINERVA works

13. To provide political and technical framework for improving digitisation activities and scientific contents To contribute at the definition of a common European platfoprm for the harmonisation of national initiatives The Working Groups

14. Inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingual issues Multilingualism and thesaurus Interoperability and Service Provision Business Models Identification of user needs, content and quality framework for common access points Small cultural institutions Identification of good practices and competence centres Cost reduction The Working Groups

15. Benchmarking and National Policy Profiles on digitisation To exchange comparable information between Member States on programmes and policies; To give visibility to national activities in order to share similar experiences and skills; To promote the adoption of a benchmarking framework as a key tool for co-ordinating and harmonising national activities as well as to develop measures to show progress and improvement.

16. www.minervaeurope.org To promote the Lund Principles, the acitivities and the results of the project To promote the project’s partners To be a “gate” to other linked initiatives To be an essential instrument on Web quality, digitisation, metadata, long-term preservation, accessibility Minerva Web site

17. The Newsletter: The subscription to the English newsletter is now possible through the MINERVA web site: a constant updating about the MINERVA news. The MINERVA mailing list: To distribute information to users interested in the digitisation issues New tools

18. Cooperation among European cultural projects: sharing knowledge and exchanging experience; promoting results (studies, reports, guidelines); adopting common standards and agendas; avoiding duplication of activities and wasting of resources among projects; merging efforts together to maximise the impact of the individual projects; creating a larger community of users. DigitisationCluster

19. Euromed Heritage IIEVAHEREINMINERVAMUSICNETWORKPRESTOSPACESCRAN Projects participating to the DigitisationCluster BRICKSCALIMERADELOSDIGICULT FORUMEMII-DCFEPOCHERPANET

20. Minerva publishes handbooks and guidelines on digitisation, edited by its working groups, and an annual progress report of the NRG: 1st and 2nd Progress Reports of the National Representatives Group (2002 and 2003) Good practice handbook Quality criteria for cultural web applications Technical Guidelines Publications

21. The Global report aims at diffusing MINERVA results to a wide public on politics, programmes, projects on digitisation of cultural and scientific content in the 15 Member States The Global report

22. Provides useful information to the establishment, execution and management of digitisation projects. It is a reasoned organisation of lessons learnt by the analysis of the data collected across Europe until May 2002. The Handbook is enriched with on-line complementary information, and in particular a selection of existing guidelines on digitisation. The good practice handbook

23. Introduction and background (Lund Principles and the Minerva project) 10 sets of practical lessons learnt and information gathered by the Minerva project best practice team. A collections of practical ‘rules of thumb’, to be considered by organisations who are establishing, executing or managing digitisation projects in the cultural sphere. Complementary on-line information (addresses of existing guidelines and references to examples of good practices in the various sectors) The structure of the Handbook

24. The material is broken down in accordance with the stages in the digitisation life-cycle. Each guideline description is structured as: Title, Issue definition, which sets the scene and introduces the problem(s) addressed, Pragmatic suggestions, Notes or commentary. Practical Guidelines

25. Digitisation project planning Selecting source material for digitisation Preparation for digitisation Handling of originals The digitisation process Preservation of the digital master material Meta-data Publication IPR and copyrigth Managing Digital Projects Practical Guidelines

26. Proposes methods and criteria to join content quality agreed at European level Based on the 10 Quality Principles announced at the international conference in Parma (Nov. 2003) Soon available on Minerva web site It represents one of the actions to be undertaken to ensure quality of digitisation process, quality of contents and quality of cultural web applications. The quality criteria

27. The instruments: Membership agreement To formalise the participation of Ministries from other countries in the MINERVA network Co-operation agreement To formalise the participation of interested organisations (Universities, private companies, cultural institutions, etc., in the MINERVA Users Group Network enlargement

28. For further information: www.minervaeurope.org fresa@promoter.it Thank you