MICHAEL. A service for accessing the European digital cultural heritage. Rossella Caffo

1. MICHAEL. A service for accessing the European digital cultural heritage. Rossella Caffo Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

2. What MICHAEL is MICHAEL is a multilingual service providing an integrated and unique access to European digital cultural collections on a cross domain basis. http://www.michael-culture.org/ EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

3. A cross-domain initiative The MICHAEL service allows to search and browse digital cultural information coming from: • all the cultural heritage sectors: archives, libraries, museums, intangible heritage, built heritage, audiovisual, landscape… • all kind of cultural institution: national, regional, local, large and small, public and private… EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

4. Background MICHAEL is a spin-off of the MINERVA project. It is based on: • the work of the MINERVA working groups oninventories, discovery of digitised content and multilingualism, interoperability and service provision • the technical platform of the French Catalogue des fonds culturels numérisés EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

5. Goals • Agreeing on a common approach for a digital cultural heritage registry in Europe • Creating a single point of access to the European digital collections • Implementing a distributed platform based on open source software • Supporting multilingualism • Creating a European infrastructure to sustain the service • Adoption by all the European countries EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

6. Basic facts • MICHAEl and MICHAEL plus are deployment projects • Funded by the eTen programme • From June 2004 to 2008 • Based on national initiatives on digitization and the creation of culture portals Funding • National funding (90%) • EC contribution (10%), only to fulfil the integration of the national initiatives into the European infrastructure • MICHAEL and MICHAEL plus total budget: 90 M€ EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

7. Partners 1 country> 1 national portal Phase 1, MICHAEL (2004-7): • Italy • France • United Kingdom Phase 2, MICHAELplus (2006-8): • Belgium • Bulgaria • Czech Republic • Estonia • Finland • France • Germany • Greece • Hungary • Italy (coordinator) • Malta • the Netherlands • Poland • Portugal • Slovak Republic • Spain • Sweden • United Kingdom EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

8. Cultural institutionsin MICHAEL • Ministries • Government and regional agencies for cultural heritage • Foundations • Research networks • Universities • National libraries, local libraries • National archives, local archives • National museums, local museums • Sound and audiovisual archives The national surveys are reaching thousand of national, regional, and local cultural institutions, EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

9. Standards • open source software platform • MINERVA recommendations and guidelines • data model aligned to the Dublin Core metadata set and the emerging Dublin Core Collection Level Description • XML data base • metadata harvesting through OAI-PMH EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

10. A distributed architecture EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

11. MICHAEL users Many different user communities • education • cultural tourism • research • management • … EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

12. The digital collectionaccording to MICHAEL Definition based on international standards (Research Support Libraries Programme-RSLP collection description and Dublin Core): “A digital collection is an aggregation of digital items” • collections of digital surrogates of physical items • collections of 'born-digital' items • catalogues of such collections Contents of a digital collection might include: • aggregations of digital images, text, audio, video, 3D objects, mixed media • databases • collections of web resources • Internet directories and subject gateways • digital archives • digital inventories, catalogues, finding aids etc. EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

13. The data model Entities of the data model: • Institution • Digital collection • Physical collection • Project - programme • Services and products Data model suitable for all kind of digital collections coming from all the cultural fields. EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

14. Activities • Population of the national databases • description of the collections • migration of the existing data • Implementation of the MICHAEL national portals • Increase of the European portal • metadata harvesting from the national databases EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

15. The achievements so far The European MICHAEL portal is on line at http://www.michael-culture.org More than 5,000 digital collections from FR, IT, UK inside! The digital collections groups millions of records. The national systems are on line and constantly updated and enriched with new data. FR http://www.michael-culture.fr or http://www.numerique.culture.fr IT http://michael-culture.it UK http://www.michael-culture.org.uk The national portals of DE, GR, NL, PL, PT are under construction. EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

16. The ongoing work The survey of the digital collections in the participating countries: • covers the whole territory (national and local cultural bodies) • includes all the CH sectors (archives, libraries, museums, audiovisual, archeology, built heritage, landscape…) • is integrated with the other national initiatives (culture portals, national, regional, digitisation programmes etc.) EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

17. Italy Coordination MiBAC – DG for the technological innovation and promotion Cooperation with other ministries Agreement with the Ministry of Education Institution involved • More than 600 MiBAC cultural institutions (libraries, museums, archives, archaeological sites, preservation offices, central institutes) • 20 Italian Regions: thousands museums, libraries, archives • Libraries and museums of the 77 Italian universities Integration with the forthcoming Italian Culture Portal (http://www.culturaitalia.it) 2762 digital collections 1475 institutions 1509 services/products 1627 physical collections 456 projects/programs EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

18. France Coordination Ministère de la culture et de la communication - Steering group for digitisation, with • Working group with the DGs of the ministry (expertise and steering) • Mission de la recherche et de la technologie (implementation of the data bases) Cooperation with other ministries • Ministère de l’Education nationale (Direction Générale de l’enseignement supérieur - sous-direction des bibliothèques et de l'information scientifique) Institutions involved • The ministerial working group works with all the braches of the ministry (archives, libraries (archives, libraries, architecture and heritage, museums, music, performing arts, theatre etc.) • Institutions of all levels (national, regional, local) Integration with http://www.culture.fr and the on-going project of unique access point to the data bases of the heritage EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

19. United Kingdom Coordination MLA – Museums, Libraries, Archives Council Institutions involved • English regions: MLA South West, MLA London, MLA South East, MLA East of England, MLA West Midlands, MLA East Midlands, MLA Yorkshire, MLA North West, MLA North East • Wales: CYMAL • Scotland: Scottish Museums Council • National museums, English Heritage, National Archives • Cultural institutions of all levels (national, regional, local) Linked initiatives • People’s Network Discovery Service • UK Cultural Information Services • regional portals EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

20. The other countries The other 15 countries that joined the network with MICHAELplus started the survey of the cultural digital collections according to the organisational model set up in France, Italy, and UK. The national portals are under preparation. EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

21. MICHAEL and multilingualism UK It Fr EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

22. Multilingual access • Human translation of static pages and editorial content • All languages spoken in partner countries • User may choose in which language to browse the portal EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

23. Multilingual access Translation of European standard terminologies. Local terminologies are mapped into the European ones. EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

24. Benefits forthe cultural institutions The description of the digital collections is useful for: • reaching wider audiences at national and international level • promoting the cultural institutions • informing users about the collections that they own and promoting the access to them • building a road-map of what’s on in the field of the digitisation of the cultural heritage EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

25. Sustainability The AISBL “MICHAEL Culture” was created according to the Belgian law. It will assure the MICHAEL service in a long term perspective. Full members: France (presidency), Italy (deputy-presidency), Germany, United Kingdom. Other European countries are joining the AISBL as associated members. EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

26. The EuropeanDigital Library EC Communication: i2010: Digital Libraries (30th September 2005) • a common multilingual access point to Europe’s distributed digital cultural and scientific heritage • all types of cultural material • texts, audiovisual, museum objects, archival records etc • held in different places by different organisations • targeted at delivering rapidly a critical mass of resources to the users EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

27. MICHAEL andthe European Digital Library 13 November 2006 Brussels, Council of the Ministers of Culture Adoption of the text “Digitisation and Online Accessibility of Cultural Material, and Digital Preservation” that says that, to build the European Digital Library, two are the main bricks: • CENL and the service “The European Library” that provides access to the national libraries across Europe • MICHAEL and the European portal of the digital collections EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

28. MICHAEL for the European Digital Library MICHAEL established a comprehensive network of thousands of European cultural and scientific organisations: • Large, medium and small • National, regional or local • Public and private • Every scientific and cultural sector (Museums, Libraries, Archives, Catalogue and preservation offices, Education, Research institutes etc…) The network successfully tested cooperative approach and working methods. EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

29. MICHAEL contribution to the European Digital Library • MICHAEL Culture AISBL, one of founder members of the Foundation – representing Ministries and cross-sector interests • MICHAEL Culture AISBL is participating in EDLnet Thematic Network (http://www.europeandigitallibrary.eu/edlnet/) EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

30. What doesthis mean technically? • MICHAEL locates digital collections from across Europe that will be collected into the European Digital Library • MICHAEL was developed to be an ‘information environment services registry’ • MICHAEL holds details of interoperability protocols supported by different databases • Z39.50, OAI-PMH, Web Services • MICHAEL holds details of terminologies used by different databases EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo

31. MICHAEL andthe European Digital Library European Digital Library Diagram developedat TEL / MICHAELmeeting, Frankfurt,March 2006 MICHAEL TEL National Library collections Collections Items EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo National & Regional Museums, Audio-Visual, Archives and Libraries National Libraries

32. Rossella Caffo rcaffo@beniculturali.it Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali www.michael-culture.eu (project) www.michael-culture.org (portal) Contacts EVA Jerusalem 2007 Rossella Caffo