Digital meets Culture

Please help us improve the software by downloading and testing it.

The latest version of veraPDF is now available to download on the PREFORMA Open Source Portal. This is the final version before version 1.0, which is expected to be released on January 9th 2017 making it an effective release candidate. New features include the schematron based policy checker and a fully functional greenfield implementation. For the upcoming version 1.0 we’ll be:

performing software fixes in response to issues raised on GitHub: https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/issues;
reviewing the API and adding JavaDoc for remaining public methods;
improving our documentation; and
making changes to our test and build systems.

The full list of changes listed in the release notes is:

Application Enhancements

schematron based policy checker implementation:
- example policy schemas on GitHub: https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-policy-docs/tree/master/Schemas; and
- policy functionality available in CLI and GUI;
greenfield implementation of feature extraction;
greenfield implementation of metadata fixer;
GUI now supports checking multiple files or a directory;
HTML summary report for multiple file results;
single file detailed report containing policy and feature information; and
stability improvements and performance optimization of the greenfield parser.

Conformance checker

fixed glyph width checks in case of exactly 1/1000 point difference;
fixed default color space processing for Indexed color spaces;
fixed Order array support for OCG checks in PDF/A-2; and
fixed Unicode character maps support for PDF/A-1 Level A.

Download veraPDF 0.28

PDFBox version: http://www.preforma-project.eu/downloads/veraPDF/bin/all-platforms/verapdf-0.28-20122016.zip

Greenfield version: http://www.preforma-project.eu/downloads/veraPDF/bin/all-platforms/verapdf-0.28-GF-20122016.zip

Release notes

https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/releases/latest

Please help us improve the software by downloading and testing it. If you encounter problems, or wish to suggest improvements, please add them to the project’s GitHub issue tracker https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/issues, or contact us through our mailing list (http://lists.verapdf.org/listinfo/users).

About veraPDF

Led by the Open Preservation Foundation and the PDF Association, the veraPDF consortium is developing the industry-supported open source, file-format validator for all parts and conformance levels of ISO 19005 (PDF/A). The software is designed to meet the needs of memory institutions responsible for preserving digital content for the long term. http://verapdf.org/

The veraPDF consortium is funded by the PREFORMA project. PREFORMA (PREservation FORMAts for culture information/e-archives) is a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme. http://www.preforma-project.eu/

University of Graz, 12-13 April 2017

CO:OPyright: Challenges and Practices of Copyright and Licensing of Digital Cultural Heritage

The conference is hosted by the Centre for Information Modelling – Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and the Institute of the Foundations of Law, Section ‘Law and ICT’ at the University of Graz (Austria).
In the age of digital information technology and the constant availability of information through the Internet, it is not only important to have democratic access to knowledge, but also essential to consider the potential that lies in the critical production and expansion of knowledge. The CO:OP – short for Community as Opportunity: the creative archives’ and users’ network – co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union aims to strengthen and promote the co-operation between institutions preserving our common cultural heritage and the general public.
Of particular interest and concern to cultural heritage institutions are issues of copyright on, provision of and access to digitized material. There is a recognizable political drive in the European Union to facilitate public access to cultural heritage – and data in general – hosted at public institutions. However, the lack of legal harmonization and the often unclear national legislations on the use and provision of resources by public cultural heritage or scientific institutions has been prohibiting a much broader engagement between the general public and its own cultural heritage.

This conference invites:
a. legal experts to present contributions on the legal framework concerning digital cultural heritage resources on a national or international level, the European and international conditions, political developments and innovative approaches to improve the situation on the use and provision of such resources,
b. experts and curators from cultural heritage institutions to share their best – and worst! – practice examples with projects that had to deal with copyright and licensing as exemplary showcases for the CO:OP community at large.

These two different perspectives on the topic will be presented in consecutive sessions of 20-minute papers on April 13 and brought together in a Panel Discussion with stakeholders from cultural heritage institutions, the legal academic community and representatives of funding bodies and political entities at the end of the conference.

Pre-Conference Workshops on April 12 will provide hands-on sessions on pertinent licensing tools, Open GLAM, and the introduction of a Guidelines and Best Practices document regarding the core topics of the conference which will serve as one of the deliverables and milestones of the CO:OP project.

Co:op official website: http://coop-project.eu/

Paris (France), 20th March 2017

Seminar “1968 in the Media”

The Media Studies Commission of the International Federation of Television Archives announces its forthcoming international seminar to take place in Paris, on March 20th, 2017.

The one-day seminar is dedicated to the media coverage of different political and social events that took place in 1968 across the globe. From the Prague Spring in the former Czechoslovakia to the student protests in Paris and civil rights movement in the United States, the protests of 1968 marked a series of national and transnational events that captured media’s attention.

The seminar will be hosted by Centre national de la recherche scientifique in Paris and is organized by the FIAT/IFTA Media Studies Commission in collaboration with the EUscreen Foundation and the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA).

Scholars, archivists and media professionals were invited to send in a 250-word abstract dealing with, but not limited to:

Media coverage of social and political events that took place in 1968 in different national contexts;
Comparative and transnational studies on May 1968;
May 1968 as a platform for doing European television history;
Live broadcasting of media events in 1968;
Archival material from around the world documenting the 1968 events in different countries.

We also welcome studies on other topics, which have used archival material from FIAT/IFTA member archives.

The deadline for submitting the abstracts was January 15th, 2017. Selected papers dealing with the coverage of 1968 on television in Europe may be invited to submit to the special issue of VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture dedicated to ‘1968 on Television’, to be published by the end of 2017.

FIAT/IFTA member archives can provide research facilities and extracts free of charge to candidates whose abstracts are selected. Inquiries about this should be made to the chair of the Media Studies Commission, Herbert Hayduck (archiv @ orf.at).

Image: Mai 68 Début d’une lutte prolongée – Atelier Populaire via V&A Collections

E-Space new prototype, the Pop-Up Museum, and its exhibitions were displayed at Cultuur in Beeld conference on 7 December 2016

Another exhibition popped-up!

Cultuur in Beeld (Culture in Focus) is an annual seminar organized by the Dutch Ministry of Instruction, Science and Culture, addressing the most relevant themes for the cultural sector. The 2016 edition in Rotterdam, on 7 December, was focused on diversity, employment and innovation.

In the conference venue, a Pop-Up Museum station was set up by partners Noterik and the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision, allowing the conference attendees to explore some of the exhibitions which were realized by E-Space partners with this tool: the Dutch Coal Mines, a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, and the exhibition about Cuisine.

Learn more on Pop-Up Museum:

http://www.europeana-space.eu/pop-up-museum

https://www.mupop.net/

The whole seminar, in double language (English and French) was recorded and screen captured. A video is available via the E-Space YouTube channel.

Europeana Space tests educational demonstrator during seminar “The Ghent Altarpiece in 100 Billion Pixels”

by Frederik Temmermans, imec

On the 29th of November 2016, Europeana Space organised a seminar entitled “The Ghent Altarpiece in 100 Billion Pixels” at the imec offices in Brussels. During the seminar, the Europeana Space educational demonstrator “Photographic investigation of artworks” was used for the first time in a real world setting.

The demonstrator “Photographic investigation of art works” is based on the website “Closer to Van Eyck – Rediscovering the Ghent Altarpiece”. The website presents more than 100 billion pixels of image data of the Ghent Altarpiece (1432) in visual light macrophotography, infrared macrophotography, infrared reflectography and X-radiography – hence the title of the seminar. The website provides a tremendous resource for education. For example, detailed insights can be taught on painting techniques, art restoration, imaging modalities and image processing can be shared with the students.

However, during a lecture, navigating between images from one detail to another and switching between presentation and the website can be cumbersome. Therefore, Europeana Space created a demonstrator that integrates the viewer into an interactive presentation. The presentation combines typical slides with one or more interactive viewers. This allows to navigate from one view to another with a single mouse click. All functionality available on the website, such as comparing different modalities, is available in the presentation tool. Additional features are available as well, such as comparison of a virtually unlimited number of viewers. This allows to put multiple details from different paintings next to each other on a single slide, for example allowing to focus on specific aspects such as pearls, faces or eyes.

The aim of this event was to demonstrate the added value of the demonstrator during a real seminar, compared to traditional presentation tools such as Microsoft PowerPoint and compared to manually navigating a traditional website such as Closer to Van Eyck.

The seminar was organised for students Art History of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). First, Frederik Temmermans from imec gave an introduction about the aim of the event and its context within the Europeana Space project. Thereafter, word was given to Valentine Hendriks and Bart Fransen for their presentation “The Ghent Altarpiece in 100 Billion Pixels”. Their presentation focused on the art historic background of the Ghent Altarpiece, the different documentation methodologies, Van Eyck’s painting techniques and comparative research.

Valentine Henderiks gained a degree as Doctor in Art History from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She is scientific collaborator at the Centre for the Study of the Flemish Primitives and lecturer at the ULB. Her PhD, dedicated to the life and work of Albrecht Bouts (1451/55-1549), received the prize Jacques Lavalleye-Coppens from the « classe des Arts » of the Royal Academy of Belgium, and was published in 2011 in the series “Contributions” (10) edited by the Centre. She is curator of the exhibition “Passion. Albrecht Bouts and the Face of Christ” and is project director of “Wings & Links”.

Bart Fransen is Head of the Centre for the Study of the Flemish Primitives. He gained his degree as Doctor in History of Art from the Catholic University of Leuven in 2009 with a PhD on “Rogier van der Weyden and Stone Sculpture in Brussels” (Harvey Miller, 2013). He worked at the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and the Catholic University of Leuven. He publishes and lectures on Early Netherlandish art and on the artistic relations between the Burgundian Netherlands and Spain. He is Project Director of VERONA (Van Eyck Research in OpeN Access).

A short survey was distributed to the students asking to provide their opinions and feedback. Because of the international nature of the Europeana Space project, and because of the cosmopolitan setting in Brussels with a multilingual audience, the event was organised bilingual, switching between English and French.

Access the Demonstrator and view the recording of the seminar HERE

More about the Demonstrators on the E-Space education website

Luxembourg, 17-18 November 2016

ICT Research and Innovation for Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage: Horizon 2020 Information and Networking Day

This event, organised by the European Commission on 17 November, addressed potential applicants for the first Calls under Horizon 2020 in the fields of ICT research & innovation supporting the Cultural and Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage.

The plenary session provided participants with information on the current work programme and about preparing proposals.

Two relevant calls were presented: ICT-20 (topic: Tools for smart digital content in the creative industries) and CULT-COOP-09 (topic: European cultural heritage, access and analysis for a richer interpretation of the past).

A networking session followed, where participants shared their project ideas and look for consortium partners.

Presentations of the event are available here: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ict-research-and-innovation-creative-industries-and-cultural-heritage-horizon-2020-1

Deadline Friday 6 January (5pm GMT)

MuseumNext Europe Call for Speakers – Rotterdam, The Netherlands 26-28 June 2017

MuseumNext is a global conference series on the future of museums, taking place in the world’s cultural capitals since 2009. The conference is a catalyst for innovation, transformation and collaboration in museums, galleries and heritage sites, with more than 900 individuals from 32 countries joining us in 2016.

Each MuseumNext conference has a theme, around which our community comes together to discuss the future of museums. For our European Museum Conference this theme is inspired by the wish to celebrate those people, ideas and technologies that are changing the landscape of the sector.

Theme – Museum Gamechangers
We invite opinions, expertise, case studies, discussions and workshops around the points below:

Leaders and cultural entrepreneurs – shaking up the museum sector, pushing boundaries and ensuring the future success and relevance of museums, galleries, science centres and cultural organisations in which they work.

Technology – the use of cutting edge technology in the areas of, interactive campaigns, wearables, virtual reality, augmented reality, gadgets, platforms, games and more in the museum space to engage, nurture and connect.

Practice – Innovative work with communities and schools, social engagement with diverse groups, being an ethical museum, raising the significance of the museum in daily lives, connecting and succeeding.

Touring – How are touring exhibitions reshaping the museum landscape, what are the business models which museums are adopting to profit from touring.

Partnerships – Working together across organisations; in conjunction with individuals, groups, regionally, nationally and internationally, sharing resources, goals and people.

Audiences – elevating engagement, widening attendance, sharing a connection with each visitor through personalization, content and programming.

Format
20-minute presentations
2-hour workshops

More details and how to apply: https://www.museumnext.com/get-involved/call-for-papers/

Rome, 24 January 2017

DiXiT workshop: The educational and social impact of Digital Scholarly Edition – Call for Proposals

Digilab and DiXiT network (http://dixit.uni-koeln.de/) organize a one day workshop on the educational application and social impact of digital scholarly editions. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, January 24, 2017, in conjunction with the AIUCD 2017 Conference and the 3rd EADH Day (aiucd2017.aiucd.it) at the Sapienza University of Roma.

Keynote speech by Agiatis Benardou, Senior Researcher at the Digital Curation Unit, ATHENA R.C. and manager of Europeana Research: “’Signatures of all things I am here to read’: Digital Research as Practice, Digital Networks as Public Engagement”.

Invited talk by Silvia Orlandi, Associate Professor of Latin Epigraphy at Sapienza University: “EAGLE dedicated services and their educational potential”.

The goal of the workshop is to share experiences and foster theoretical reflections about the impact of digital scholarly editing products and methods, primarily in the educational context, but also in the more general social context. The use of digital technologies in teaching prompts a reflection on the added value of using these technologies and raises some controversial questions. At the same time, digital research outcomes and methods should not be considered as separate from the more general cultural and social context. In this sense, digital scholarly editions can play a relevant role in the public engagement of humanities scholarship. These topics can be articulated in the following issues:

the digital editions in teaching philology and textual criticism
digital editions in disciplinary context
digital editions and their social impact
digital editions and academic publishing
digital editions and public humanities

The organizers solicited proposals for interventions in form of papers, small tutorials session, round table and lightening talks. Abstracts of max 500 words can be submitted via the AIUCD 2017 ConfTool, available at http://www.conftool.net/aiucd2017/. The official language of the Workshop is English.

Dixit Workshop Cfp extended to December 20.

Organizing Committee

Fabio Ciotti
Anna-Maria Sichani
Elena Spadini
Gianfranco Crupi
Federico Caria

For information contact Anna-Maria Sichani (annasixani@gmail.com) or Elena Spadini (spadinielena@gmail.com)

Stories from the event in Girona for professionals in photography and audiovisual

Image and Research Conference 2016 report

by David Iglésias Franch (CRDI). photos courtesy of CRDI.

In the third week of November (from 16th to 18th) it was held a new edition of the Image and Research Conference, organized by the Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI) of the Girona City Council with the collaboration of the Association of Archivists of Catalonia. In that edition, around 200 people attended representing fifteen different countries. The Image and Research Conference held its fourteenth year, and after 26 years, we have become the benchmark event in Spain for professionals involved in photography and audiovisual mainly in the field of archives, preservation, history and document management.

The Conference started on the 16th with the completion of four different workshops. At the morning and afternoon session two workshops were organized. One of them was “Software analysis for Image Management” by Juan Alonso, audiovisual archivist at EU. The other was “Colour Conservation” by Pau Maynés, conservator of cultural heritage and teacher at the Institute National du Patrimoine (Paris). At the afternoon session two other workshops were organized. One of them was “Preforma: a tool to improve the preservation of digital cultural heritage” by Magnus Geber, Principal Administrative Officer at the Information and Preservation Department at the National Archives of Sweden; Antonella Fresa, General Manager and Administrator of Promoter (Italy); Miquel Montaner, CTO at Easy Innova (Girona). The other was “Photography at the eCultureMap” by Frank J. Zakrajsek, researcher at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage (Slovenia), a workshop organised with the collaboration of Michael Association. 70 people attended the workshops.

Tallers de les 14es Jornades Imatge i Recerca a l’Auditori de Girona. Preforma: Una eina per millorar la presentació del patrimoni digital. Professors: Antonella Fresa, Magnus Geber i Miquel Montaner.

On the 17^th and 18^th it took place the sessions for papers and presentations that make up the main event of the Conference in the Girona Conference Centre. To highlight the speakers we quote Peter Schelkens, from Vrije Universiteit Brussels and member of the JPEG Committee, who gave an overview of the JPEG format considering its new functionalities according to the technological development. Patrick Peccate, researcher at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, EHESS (Paris), dedicated his talk to the analysis of photography at Social Networks, with especial emphasise to metadata impact. Xavier Antich, professor of Philosophy at Universitat de Girona, made a series of reflections on the role of photography in front of memory problems in circumstances of war and dictatorships. Last, Joan Boadas and Pau Saavedra, Director and Technician at CRDI – Girona City Council, explained the importance of the archival treatment experience with the sound and audiovisual records from Nuclear Claims Tribunal of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

14es Jornades Imatge i Recerca de Girona. “PhotoConsortium, International Consortium for Photographic Heritage”. Cap de taula: Laia Foix. Conferència a càrrec de Fred Truyen, president del PhotoConsortium, i David Iglésias, conseller de PhotoConsortium.

In the experiences session we quote the speakers that took part of the Conference. Fred Truyen and David Iglésias, President and Officer of PhotoConsortium (The International Consortium for Photographic Heritage), they talked about goals, experiencies and oportunities for Photoconsortium members. Lorna Arroyo, Professor at Universidad Internacional de la Rioja (UNIR) presented a talk about strategies to consider for photography exhibitions. Sergi Griñó, Director of Album Company, presented the results of its works regarding image recognition, focused on the Image Registry software. And last, Montse Aguer, Rosa M. Maurell and Carme Ruiz, Director and Coordinators of CED explained the works at Centre d’Estudis Dalinians.

14es Jornades Imatge i Recerca de Girona. Debat. D’esquerra a dreta: Laia Foix, Lorna Arroyo, Fred Truyen i David Iglésias.

The program gives also special importance to the debate and participation. On the 18^th it took place the round table titled ” National Plans of Photography: Models, valuations and proposals” in which participants talked about their different point of views and they made a critical assessment about the results of these plans, that received some criticisms from the audience. In this table were involved Elisenda Vidal, as a moderator; the Director of Centre de Recerca i Difusió de la Imatge (CRDI), Joan Boadas; the representing oh photographers union (UPIFC), Pepe Baeza; the responsible of Servicio de Documentación del Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, Rosa Chumillas; the Head of the Department of General Coordination of Archives at Generalitat de Catalunya, Enric Cobo; and a representing of Associació d’Arxivers de Catalunya (AAC), Jordi Serchs. It was also involved David Iglésias, as a rapporteur of the online debate on Facebook.

Last, we should mention the session of 18^th afternoon dedicated to papers. 34 papers were presented and that makes evident the need to count on this kind of forums to share knowledge and experiences. Once again, the two-days meeting in Girona was for all of us a good opportunity to be in contact with colleagues with different backgrounds, but with a shared interest: the photographic and audiovisual heritage.

Link to the papers: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_actes.php

Link to the photographic reportage: http://www.girona.cat/sgdap/cat/jornades_imatges.php

Presentations and photogallery now available online

Results of the PREFORMA Experience Workshop

Experience Workshop – Improving long-term digital preservation is the name of the second international workshop organised by the PREFORMA Consortium.

The event, which took place in Berlin on November 23, 2016, aimed at demonstrating the conformance checkers for file-formats developed in the project, involving memory institutions outside the PREFORMA consortium in testing, using and further developing the software, and sharing the experience gained by PREFORMA memory institutions working with developers under R&D service agreements.

Hosted at the Kulturforum in Berlin, the event featured keynote presentations by international experts in digital preservation on the importance of checking the conformance of the digital files against the standard specifications, use cases and experiments of conformance checking at memory institutions, live demonstrations of the software developed by the three suppliers (the veraPDF consortium, Easy Innova, MediaArea) and an informal networking event where the attendees could share experiences, meet the PREFORMA developers and learn more about the tools.

The workshop was co-located with Europeana Space final conference, the third edition of the Networking Session for EC projects in the cultural heritage field and the meeting of the German Working Group on PCP and PPI (Pre-Commercial Procurement and Public Procurement of Innovative solutions).