Digital meets Culture

promoting audience development through photography as a public and shared art form

Urban Layers is an European Project about photography in the public space, whose aims are:
/ bringing contemporary art to a wider audience;
/ promoting photographic research and supporting emerging artists.

The project is funded by Creative Europe – Culture Sub-programme and aims to encourage a broad audience to take part in the cultural development of its territory through an active participation to the use of photography as a form of public and shared art.

Urban Layers consists of:
a Residency Program in Gibellina (Sicily) for 6 artists selected upon open call;
three Urban Photo–festivals in the cities of Málaga, Thessaloniki, Lecce;
a final conference in Cinisello Balsamo with the publication of the catalogue;
a scientific research on the art consumption by general audience.

The video below offers a visual journey through the Urban Layers Residency Program, with excerpts of interviews to the artists involved. The residencies took place in Gibellina (Sicily) from 31st March to 21st April, 2016:

Each Photo–festival will display:
— an itinerant exhibition composed by the Residency Program’s results;
— photographic projects selected upon open call;
— a site–specific installation by internationally renowned artist Adrian Paci.

The Project is promoted by:

Visit website: http://www.urbanlayers.eu/

Vienna (Austria), 16-18 November 2016

21st International Conference on Cultural Heritage and NEW Technologies (CHNT 21, 2016)

the „21st International Conference on Cultural Heritage and NEW Technologies“ is organized by the Urban Archaeology of Vienna and their partners and will take place in the City Hall of Vienna, Austria on November 16-18, 2016

The theme of CHNT 21 2016 will be Urban Archaeology and Data: Re-use and Repurposing of Archaeological and Historical Material and Data
Ever increasing understanding of our primary sources and technological progress have led to higher and higher standards of recording and analysis in archaeological and historical research.

Programme and Registration: http://www.chnt.at/

Topics of Sessions and Round Table

Preservation and Re-Use of Digital Archaeological Research Data with Open Archival Information Systems
Digging for the Digital Dividend: Information Systems and Excavation Data
The Employment of Mobile Applications for Survey, Documentation and Information
Combining ‘physical’ and ‘digital’ in archaeological practice: collaborative visualisation during excavation
New realities2: virtual, augmented reality and other techniques in Cultural Heritage for the general public
3D reconstruction as an interpretative melting pot of the (art-)historical data
Photogrammetry in Underwater and Aerial Archaeology
(Inter)relating to the Dead
PhD / Master Session

ROUND TABLES

Long-term preservation and access: Where is an archive for my data?
The integration between archaeology and history based on ICT
Target Groups, Users, Followers, Fans – The Nature and Potential of Social Data in Archaeology

POSTER – AWARD (Topics)

Urban Archaeology
New Technologies
Mobile Applications
Cultural Heritage
Virtual Realities
Burial Archaeology

Hannover (Germany), 5-9 September 2016

TPDL 2016 – 20th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries

The International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL) constitutes a leading scientific forum on digital libraries that brings together researchers, developers, content providers and users in the field of digital libraries. TPDL 2016 will take place in Hannover, Germany on September 5-9, 2016. The conference will be jointly organized by the L3S Research Center and the German National Library of Science and Technology.

TPDL 2016 General Theme: “Overcoming the Limits of Digital Archives”

Keynote speakers of 2016 edition are:

Jan Rybicki, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Tony Veale, University College Dublin, Ireland
David Bainbridge, University of Waikato, and Director of the New Zealand Digital Library Research Project

Next to presentation of resercah papers, the conference includes tutorials, specialized tracks, a Poster Session, and workshops.

Registration is open and the list of accepted papaers is also available:
http://www.tpdl2016.org/

Riga (Latvia), 8-9 November 2016

Europeana Network Annual General Meeting 2016

The magnificent National Library of Latvia in Riga hosted this two-day event on 8-9 November 2016: this year the focus of the conversations was on topics like Europeana and the cultural commons, developments of our Network Association and Europeana’s impact across European digital cultural heritage.

[Show as slideshow]

The Europeana Network Association AGM is always a brilliant chance to get together with like-minded friends and colleagues, and catch up on developments in the sector.

The electoral campaign for Europeana Members Council was also launched some weeks ago and voting is started.

Learn more here: http://pro.europeana.eu/event/europeana-network-association-agm-2016

Berlin, 13-14 June 2016

AppHub PlugFest in Berlin

AppHub Software Quality Workshop, June 13, 2016, Berlin

Target to project coordinators who will learn to implement open source project management best practices. They will allow the market to find and to deploy their software more rapidly.

AppHub Software Appliances Workshop, June 14, 2016, Berlin

Target to project technical leaders who will learn to improve the quality and the interoperability of open source software. Through the AppHub Factory, they will generate software appliances for physical, virtual and cloud environments.

Where and When

Both workshops will take place in Fraunhofer FOKUS Berlin office:

Fraunhofer FOKUS
Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31
Berlin, Germany

The AppHub workshops registration is now OPEN. Please, check the detailed AppHub Plugfest agenda and register at http://l.ow2.org/apbw.

AppHub Workshops objectives

The main objective of the AppHub Workshops is to assist European open source project to bring their software into the AppHub European Open Source Marketplace. In addition, we like to understand the current state of open source software as developed by EU funded projects, and how we can assist them to improve their quality assurance and governance processes.

Participants contribution

Please do not prepare slides! We like participants to engage in an open dialogue about the challenges, problem, and success stories on open source software development.
Please prepare a short statement about: your project in general, and the software you are developing under an open source license; the group of users that you address with your software; the measures that you employ in order to ensure that you deliver quality software; the way you manage your community of contributors and users; the expectations that you have on our workshop.
Bring Your Own Software! If you have executables and an installation procedure ready we can immediately assist to bring your software into the AppHub Open Source Marketplace. We will organize hands-on session on the AppHub platform and OSCAR (Open-source Software Capability Assessment Radar) by OW2.

About AppHub

Open source software is the generic name for both a legal construct to share intellectual property and an approach to cooperative software development. While this approach has demonstrated its ability to produce world-class software, the potential benefts and efciencies of open source are not, however, always achieved, indeed, far from it. Publishing code is not enough to develop a community of developers and only a minority of open source projects actually make it to stardom. This is certainly why open source remains a challenge for many IT professionals who still prefer to see the downside of open source. The aim of the AppHub project is to support the market outreach strategies of EU-supported open source by launching AppHub, the European open source marketplace. AppHub is a service platform that will help the market to seamlessly identify, position and implement the software outcomes of these projects.

Brussels, 23 May 2016

Civic Epistemologies @ Riches Second Policy Seminar

“New Horizons for Cultural Heritage – Recalibrating relationships: bringing cultural heritage and people together in a changing Europe” was the Second Policy Seminar organised by the RICHES project to discuss how the project can provide insights to support evidence-based policymaking in Europe.

The seminar, hosted at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), comprises political updates by representatives from the European Parliament and the European Commission, the presentation of policy recommendations from the RICHES project and a Round Table discussion involving major stakeholders.

The seminar started with a pre-event consisting in a networking session of EC Projects, with the participation of more than 20 projects in different frameworks.

The networking sessions was follow up to the first such session organised on the occasion of the first Policy Seminar in October 2015. The scope of this session was to reflect on how to sustain the organisation of these kind of appointments in the future, after the end of the RICHES project. In facts, as the RICHES events are organized with networking sessions and discussions, they represent a good opportunity to reflect on the impact that cultural heritage projects are delivering, identify opportunities to improve the effectiveness of their results, and identify synergies and the potential for collaboration among projects.

In the light to continue the dissemination of the results of the CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES project and to strengthen the establishment of a valuable network among EU projects, Mauro Fazio (Project Coordinator) presented the results achieved by the project.

The dissemination materials have been also distributed by the staff of Promoter, who realised a Digital Gallery showing the two posters developed by the CIVIC EPISTEMOLGIES project. Have a look to the Digital Gallery here: http://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/projects/riches/digital-poster-exhibition/

For further information, the presentations by the speakers and any further outcome of the Policy Seminar, please visit the event page on the RICHES website.

Dubrovnik (Croatia), 22-24 September 2016

THE BEST IN HERITAGE, global annual survey of award-winning museum, heritage and conservation projects

This year the Best in Heritage celebrates its 15th anniversary, once more giving a featured selection of the most innovative and inspiring award-winning museum, heritage and conservation projects well-deserved attention from the international, professional community. The gathering will consist of two events, representing a balanced variety of best practices, geographically diverse, and accomplished in many different circumstances and contexts: IMAGINES, a one day event where Multimedia and New technology achievements will be presented; and the core event, with its packed two-day schedule. Altogether 44 projects will be presented, with representatives from China, the United States, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Vietnam, Russia and Europe taking the stage.

In addition to the global survey of best practice, the conference features rich social and cultural content organised with help of Dubrovnik Museums, all taking place in the Renaissance city centre of Dubrovnik, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The conference is organised in partnership with EUROPA NOSTRA & the Endowment Fund of ICOM, with the support of the City of Dubrovnik and with sponsorship from Meyvaert Glass Engineering.

Links:

Programme: http://www.thebestinheritage.com/conference/programme

Imagines: http://www.thebestinheritage.com/conference/programme/imagines

Registration: http://www.thebestinheritage.com/conference/registration

Contact: Luka Cipek, pm@thebestinheritage.com

https://twitter.com/BestInHeritage

https://www.facebook.com/TheBestInHeritage

https://issuu.com/tbih

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBestInHeritage

UNESCO PERSIST is looking for feedback from institutions which have used or are thinking on using them

UNESCO/PERSIST Guidelines for the selection of digital heritage for long-term preservation

L to R: Ingrid Parent, Dr. Abdulla El Reyes, Julia Brungs, Frank la Rue. CC BY-SA 2.0

The UNESCO PERSIST Project, an initiative of UNESCO, ICA, IFLA and other partners, for enhancing the sustainability of digital heritage, has now launched the UNESCO/PERSIST Guidelines for the selection of digital heritage for long-term preservation.

The aim of the Guidelines is to provide an overarching starting point for libraries, archives, museums and other heritage institutions when drafting their own policies on the selection of digital heritage for long-term sustainable digital preservation.

The Guidelines target institutions, professionals and administrators on every level and in every region of the world in order to review existing material for selection, highlight important issues, and offer guidance when drafting institutional policies, they were written by a team of seven authors from the libraries, archives, and museums community.

The UNESCO PERSIST Project encourages everyone to use the Guidelines as a starting point for the institutional policies and is looking for feedback from institutions which have used or are interested/planning/thinking on using them in order to improve them and make them truly usable for all communities.

Please send your feedback/suggestions/comments and success stories to: cultural.heritage@ifla.org.

You can find the Guidelines in English, Arabic and French here: http://www.ifla.org/node/10315?og=7607.

Deadline for Abstract submission was 3 June. DI4R 2016 is organized jointly by EGI, EUDAT, GÉANT, OpenAIRE and RDA Europe.

Preparation for the first cross e-infrastructure event DI4R 2016

The deadline for abstract submission to the Digital Infrastructures for Research 2016 event was on 3 June.

The DI4R 2016 will be held in Kraków on 28-30 September 2016. The conference will be hosted by ACC Cyfronet AGH and organised jointly by EGI, EUDAT, GÉANT, OpenAIRE and RDA Europe.

The Call for Abstracts is now closed and the Programme Committee welcomed abstracts for presentations, workshops and training sessions submitted until the 3rd of June. (More details and instructions for submission.)

http://www.digitalinfrastructures.eu/content/call-participation

The four conference tracks are:

Challenges facing users and service providers
Services enabling research
A changing environment, changing research
Working with data

The goal of the organisers is to develop an engaging programme to foster new collaborations, promote innovation and strengthen a wider understanding of e-infrastructures within the research community. For the e-infrastructure and resource providers, the conference will be a chance to work together towards the integrated services and roadmaps that are needed to better serve the user base.

Bern, 5 October 2016

PREFORMA @ IPRES 2016

PREFORMA will contribute actively at IPRES 2016, the 13th International Conference on Digital Preservation, with both a workshop and a presentation.

The workshop, entitled “Quality standards for preserving digital cultural heritage” will be held on Wednesday 5 October 2016.

The speech (“Status of CELLAR: Update from an IETF Working Group for Matroska and FFV1“, by Ashley Blewer and Dave Rice) will present the IETF CELLAR working group and MediaArea’s efforts towards the standardisation of Matroska and FFV1.

iPRES is the longest standing digital preservation conference in the world. This important event brings together key theorists, researchers and practitioners to explore the latest trends, innovations, policies and practices in digital preservation.

About the workshop

Memory institutions face increasing volumes of electronic documents and other media content for long term preservation. Data are normally stored in specific formats for documents, images, sound, video, etc., produced by software from different vendors. This software is controlled neither by the institution producing the files, nor by the institution that archives it. This obligates memory institutions to carry out conformance tests before accepting transfers of electronic collections, but again these are beyond the control of the institution and can be unreliable. This poses problems for long-term preservation. Digital content, meant for preservation, passing through an uncontrolled generative process can jeopardise the preservation process. The objective of PERFORMA (PREservation FORMAts for culture information/e-archives) – a Pre Commercial Procurement project co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme – is to give memory institutions full control of the conformance testing of files created, migrated and ingested into archives. This is achieved through the development of open source tools which enable this process within an iteration that is under the full control of memory institutions. The project aims to establish a sustainable ecosystem involving interested stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds, including researchers, developers and memory institutions. The workshop will present the results of the project, including demonstration of the conformance checkers developed during the prototyping phase. This will inform a discussion with the digital preservation community – open source community, developers, standardization bodies and memory institutions – about the opportunities offered by PREFORMA and the challenges that are still to be addressed.

About the speech

The Internet Engineering Task Force, an open and independent international standards organization, has chartered a working group named CELLAR (Codec Encoding for LossLess Archiving and Realtime transmission) in order to develop specifications for Matroska (audiovisual container), FFV1 (lossless video encoding), and FLAC (lossless audio encoding) for use in archival environments and transmission. This paper will review the status of this ongoing work and provide an overview of the challenges and intricacies of audiovisual specification development. Topics will also include the benefits of open standards within the context of digital preservation, methods for advocating for and supporting implementation of standards, and the relationships between specification development and validator development. Additionally the paper will compare and contrast existing implementations of lossless audiovisual workflow and present current best practices for lossless audiovisual encoding and which practices may be feasible in the future.

For further information about the workshop visit the IPRES website at www.ipres2016.ch/frontend/index.php?page_id=2833.