Digital meets Culture

Brussels, 23 May 2016

“New Horizons for Cultural Heritage – Recalibrating relationships: bringing cultural heritage and people together in a changing Europe” is 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.

[Show as slideshow]

The programme offered to participants the opportunity to challenge institutional points of view with some practical results of the research conducted by RICHES, with particular regard to the following themes:

The use of craft skills in new contexts.
Community-led developments: food and cultural heritage in the urban age – the role of local food movements.
European identity, belonging and the role for digital cultural heritage: structures for social and territorial cohesion and minority communities.
Economics of culture: fiscal and economic issues in the digital age.
Institutional changes: exploring the status of digital heritage mediated by memory institutions.

Two overarching themes, related to citizenship and cultural heritage, were selected and discussed among the participants in world café type discussion groups:

– in the run-up to the European Year of CH in 2018, what policies should be developed in order to ensure that the celebrations are inclusive?

– how might developments in policy help to bring about an integrated approach to safeguarding CH?

The aim of the discussion was to provide ‘joined-up’ policy recommendations to be used in the definition of the H2020 work programme for 2018-2020.

Also, the seminar started with a pre-event consisting in a networking session of EC Projects, A Digital Posters Exhibition of the involved projects was also published.

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.

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.

Gothenburg, 30 May - 2 June 2016

OSS 2016 International Conference on Open Source Systems

The International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS) is a long-standing international forum for researchers, practitioners from business and industry, enthusiasts, and students to present and discuss the latest trends, experiences, and concerns in the field of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS).

The 12th OSS Conference will take place in will take place in the city of Gothenburg, in 30 May – 02 June 2016.

The goal of 12th International Conference on Open Source Systems, OSS 2016 is to provide an international forum where a diverse community of professionals from academia, industry and public sector, and diverse FLOSS initiatives can come together to share research findings and practical experiences. The conference is also a forum to provide information and education to practitioners, identify directions for further research, and to be an ongoing platform for technology transfer, no matter which form of FLOSS is being pursued.

FLOSS has had a disruptive effect on the software industry and the ways that organizations and individuals create, distribute, acquire and use software and software-based services. The FLOSS movement has created new kinds of opportunities such as the emergence of new business models, knowledge exchange mechanisms, and collective development approaches. On the other hand, the movement has introduced new kinds of challenges, especially as different problem domains embrace openness as a pervasive problem solving strategy. FLOSS can be complex yet widespread and often cross-cultural. Consequently, they require an interdisciplinary understanding of their technical, economic, legal and socio-cultural dynamics.

Many organizations that have been known for developing proprietary software are now actively involved with FLOSS. FLOSS adoption continues to grow among businesses, governments, and other organizations. FLOSS remains important for educators and researchers, as well as an important aspect of e-government and information society initiatives, providing access to high-quality software and the code used to create it.

For more information and to submit proposals for research papers, industry papers, formal tool demonstrations and posters. please visit the Conference website.

View them at http://opensourceworkshop.preforma-project.eu/video-recordings/

Video recordings of the Open Source Workshop now available

The video clips of all the presentations of the PREFORMA Open Source Workshop are now available on the event website.

The workshop, hosted by the National Library of Sweden on April 7, 2016, featured keynote presentations by representatives from the PREFORMA project and the open source community, live demonstrations of the three conformance checkers for electronic documents, images and AV files by the suppliers working in the project (veraPDF, Easy Innova, MediaArea) and an informal networking event where attendees can share experiences, meet the PREFORMA developers and learn about the tools.

View here all the video recordings.

DPF Manager e-News, April 2016

DPF Manager: new release ready to download!

After the redesign phase, a new version of the DPF Manager is available. The version 2.0 includes many new functionalities and improvements and is now ready to download.

The main changes of this version are the following:

The graphical interface has been redesigned, using a better lightweight framework.
The console window has been integrated within a widget in the GUI itself.
Now it is much easier for developers to edit and create new implementation checkers, because they are now written with XML files, instead of hardcoded in the source.
A logging system has been created for easier error reporting.
The DPF Manager now provides an API for external developers to be able to communicate with it, performing checks and receiving the reports.

More detailed information on all the changes in this new version can be found in GitHub.

Please download DPF Manager and test the 2.0 release. Your feedback is essential to keep improving the software.

The MOOC is under development and will be live in October 2016.

E-Space for education: launching a MOCC “Creative with Cultural Heritage”

Europeana Space project, focusing on increasing and enhancing reuse of Europeana and other online collections of digital cultural content by creative industries and education is developing a MOOC, a massive open online course, to be launched in the fall of 2016.

“The aim of the course is to share our experiences, the lessons learned during the project and the tools we have developed during the pilot activities of E-Space; but also what we learned thanks to the hackathons and the workshops that we held with creative professionals throughout Europe. We want to share all of this with students and teachers, professionals from the GLAM sector, event organizers and developers working on cultural heritage, with the aim to convince them of the importance of the creative reuse of digital cultural heritage and to show them that the steps to take and the tools to use to do so are within everyone’s reach.” said Fred Truyen and Clarissa Colangelo from KU Leuven, the task leaders.

The course will be organized in 3 levels. The first is a general level that targets mainly cultural heritage amateurs, students and teachers: the education segment. “Here we want to show our learners how easy it can be to move from a passive use of digitized cultural heritage – that can be simply searching for materials on repositories such as Europeana – to an active and proactive use, where everyone can contribute and share their own insights and new narratives built around this cultural heritage individually and/or with others.”

On the second level, targeted at GLAM professionals, learners will be taught how to access APIs, how to query the database from their own websites and to automate important processes for the stories they want to develop, how to create interactivity into their events, how to build components in their websites and refer to the technologies that we have developed. They also get guidance on how to use the E-Space technical space and its API, how to find interesting samples of code on Europeana Labs and they will have access to more readings on how to reuse Europeana contents and on Europeana creatives.

Lastly, the third level reaches out to developers. They will be able to search the MOOC to find the most technical information, e.g. a link to a certain API or a specific explanation; they will also have the opportunity to participate in forum discussions with people working with Europeana or from the GLAM sector. This way it is possible to incite interesting discussions where knowledge from different sectors can be shared and learners can learn not only from the project, but also from one another.

The MOOC will be live in October 2016.

Read more on E-Space for Education website

Article appeared also on Open GLAM blog.

Barcelona, 11-12 May 2016

CulturalBase: the Major Stakeholder Conference

The Major Stakeholder Conference (MSC) “Co-creating Agendas for Culture in Europe. Memory, Inclusion, Creativity” was held in Barcelona (Spain) on 11-12 May, 2016 in the framework of the CulturalBase project, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program.

The Major Stakeholder Conference (MSC) “Co-creating Agendas for Culture in Europe. Memory, Inclusion, Creativity” offered a unique opportunity to network and establish direct interaction between representatives of the academia and professionals in the cultural sector. To this end, specific small-group working sessions were foreseen to provide for in-depth discussions aiming at enabling to:

take stock of what has been produced within the project also through the online debates on the CulturalBase website;
generate a consensus for the profiling of the research agenda(s) & policy recommendations.

Participation by stakeholders was extremely important and highly appreciated in attaining the overall aim of the MSC.

The RICHES project was presented by Prof. Neil Forbes (Project Coordinator, from Coventry University – UK) and Dr. Antonella Fresa (Technical Coordinator, from Promoter srl – Italy) during the Lunch work session – “Learning from other research projects”.

Find more details about the project in the project web site: http://culturalbase.eu

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME: download pdf file

The N.I.C.E. Award 2016 Ceremony will take place on 25th August, concurrently with Forum d’Avignon Ruhr 2016 in Essen.

The N.I.C.E. Award

The N.I.C.E. Award:

The N.I.C.E. Award is an initiative by the “Network for Innovations in Culture and Creativity in Europe” (N.I.C.E.), which was launched in Dortmund in 2013 by the european centre for creative economy (ecce) with the backing of a consortium of 15 partners from ten countries. For more information, please visit: www.nice-europe.eu

This year’s topic:

As the major challenges of our time and society are obviously not getting smaller, we decided to stick to last year’s topic “Solving the World’s Major Challenges – A Call for Innovations”. Due to the great number of submissions of the last year (213 application from 29 countries) we feel that it strikes a nerve. We would like to give more projects an opportunity to provide new solutions to current crucial developments in culture and society. The deadline for submissions was 12^th May, 2016! You’ll find the call here http://nice-europe.eu/award/call-16/.

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Inna Goudz

Project Management Europe

ecce | european centre for creative economy

interesting research resources available from FP7 project

RICHES Think Papers series now completed!

8 Think Papers on different themes following the areas of research of RICHES project are now available both on the project website and on the RICHES resources website.

RICHES Think Paper 01. Copyright and Cultural Heritage: Developing a Vision for the Future. This Think Paper raises questions about the relationship between European cultural heritage and copyright in the light of the fundamental and disruptive changes brought about by new and emerging digital technologies and which promise profound transformation in the future. It advocates that a human rights approach should be taken to the use and re-use of our cultural heritage and that copyright should be used as a tool to support cultural rights.

RICHES Think Paper 02. New Forms of Artistic Performances and the Future of Cultural Heritage. How can dance and performance artists interact with digital technologies to create new artefacts and events? How are new skills, which can coexist and complement traditional skills, developing in today’s performing arts landscape? In which ways are cultural expressions from the past being currently reinvigorated and renewed with leading edge digital technology?

RICHES Think Paper 03. Cultural Heritage Festivals: Belonging, Sense of Place and Identity. This RICHES Think Paper considers the role of cultural heritage festivals in contributing to notions of belonging, sense of place and identity. It argues that with increasing migration across Europe, there is a need for more in-depth research to examine the extent to which cultural heritage festivals such as London’s Notting Hill Carnival could add to the promotion of greater European integration and social and economic development.

RICHES Think Paper 04. Digital Technologies: Re-thinking Turkish Libraries in an Information Society. Digital technology (DT) has had an enormous impact on Turkish society and culture and has introduced many changes in cultural heritage (CH) institutions such as libraries in Turkey. Traditionally used for borrowing books, doing homework or spending free time within a specific restricted timeframe, the introduction of DT has allowed for an expanded service for users with no restrictions of time and place or socio-economic background. For example, the important and extensive history and CH of Anatolia has been digitised and can be accessed online by anyone, at any time and in any place.

RICHES Think Paper 05. Digital heritage: intellectual rights, democracy and commoditisation of cultural heritage places. This Think Paper refects on debates arising from RICHES research regarding the increasing digitisation of cultural heritage places. The analysis highlights concerns about intellectual property rights, democratisation of knowledge and commoditisation of cultural heritage places. It argues that while digital technologies offer new opportunities to experience, consume, conserve and interact with cultural heritage, a balanced approached is needed to ensure the medium plays the role of enhancement rather than replacement or monopolisation.

RICHES Think Paper 06. Museum education with digital technologies: participation and lifelong learning. Education and learning have been a high priority task for museums. Whether informal and unintentional or structured in educational programmes for different kinds of audiences, museum learning focuses on the learner. Rather than knowledge transmission, it builds upon knowledge construction and an active engagement in personal, social and physical contexts. More than knowledge acquisition, learning in museums is engaging and gives a sense of wellbeing.

RICHES Think Paper 07. Public-Private Partnerships for Cultural Heritage: Opportunities, Challenges, Future Steps. This Think Paper addresses the theme of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) and raises questions about the validity of these partnerships for public administrations, the private sector and citizens. When the requirements of these parties are well served, then we can expect PPP to become an accelerator for the investments in the cultural heritage sector. This Think Paper provides an overview of what PPP is, with a special focus on PPP and cultural heritage, discussing opportunities and advantages, identifying some challenges, and proposing a set of future steps to gain more benefits from PPP.

RICHES Think Paper 08. Cultural Heritage as fuel for innovation: enabling the power of creation. How is innovation stimulated? Where does CH fit in the innovation process? What is the role of CH creators and managers in the innovation process of a society? How can an innovative environment be nurtured? This Think Paper explores the role of CH in innovation and focuses on the changing digital landscape where CH exists. The main argument is that the digital availability of CH content can serve as trigger to fuel innovation in all sectors of society.

Pisa (Italy), 4 May 2016

Virtual Museums and Photographic Heritage, seminar in Pisa

photo Rudy Pessina – In the photo, members of the PHOTOCONSORTIUM International Association with Prof. Alessandro Tosi and Dr. Maria Cioni (from Museo della Grafica), before the General Assembly.

On the occasion of Photoconsortium general assembly, a public seminar is organized on the theme of:

“Virtual Museums and Photographic Heritage“.

Virtual museums are not the simple transposition of a real museum on the Internet. They are not only archives of digitized cultural objects. Virtual museums are instead complex and interactive systems that allow access to a broader level of knowledge, experience, emotions.

What role can the photographic heritage play in this new context of exhibitions and digital services?

What changes must implement the photographic archives to meet the new challenges of the digital world?

Why should Creative Industries feel attracted by the Photographic Heritage?

Digital-Gallery_-Promoter-srl-268-694x416

photo: Promoter Digital Gallery

The seminar offered the opportunity to hear the opinion of technical and academic experts, observe demonstrations of innovative museum services, and learn about the collections of archives associated to Photoconsortium, the International Association for the enhancement of photographic heritage.

Attendance is FREE.

Venue: Pisa (Italy), Museum of Graphics, Palazzo Lanfranchi, Lungarno Galilei 9

Date: 4 May 2016 starting from 2,30 pm

Speakers were: Fred Truyen (KU Leuven), Mauro Fazio (Italian Ministry of Economic Development), Alessandro Tosi (Museum of Graphics), David Iglésias (CRDI/Girona City Council), Ismo Malinen (National Archives of Finland), Elisa Bianchi (University of Florence), John Balean (TopFoto), Frank Golomb (United Archives) . Chair: Antonella Fresa (Promoter srl).

All the presentations and more information here: http://www.photoconsortium.net/photoconsortium-annual-event-pisa-4-5-may-2016/

Organized in collaboration with Association Imago.

Invitation (PDF, 1 Mb)

Poster (PDF, 8 Mb)

Programme (PDF, 1 Mb)

a series of events across twined European cities, on stationary bicycles equipped with virtual reality technology!

#BigArtRide from April to June 2016

Appointments are:
21-23 April – Brussels & Amsterdam
27-30 April – Wroclaw & Amsterdam
06-08 May – Rome & Amsterdam
20-22 May – Prague & Amsterdam
25-28 May – Brussels & Amsterdam
30 May-1 June – Berlin & Amsterdam
9-11 June – London & Amsterdam
23-25 June – Paris & Amsterdam

and then the evnt moves to Slovakia!

Imagine racing through a city of both past and present, a city which is responsive to your every move, a city filled with amazing art, that is built before your eyes as you ride. A virtual city that reflects Europe’s heritage, its culture, its future. A cutting edge experience which allows you to (re)discover Europe’s most striking masterpieces alongside its most unique works of art, its fascinating cultural history in a digital world.

The event will invite participants to get on stationary bicycles equipped with virtual reality technology and immerse themselves in a spectacular journey through a city, experiencing centuries of Europe’s art which will take the shape of buildings, roads, trees and help build the city. Passers-by, in the meantime, will help or disrupt the cyclists by interacting with giant objects in public spaces.

Prince Constantijn from the Netherlands cycled at the Campus Party in Utrecht while MEP Mircea Diaconu cycled in Brussels. Attendance for both events were excellent. #BigArtRide gathers more and more momentum as the virtual cycling continues across Europe.

The event series are organised jointly by Europeana.eu, the Dutch design studio DROPSTUFF.nl, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid and Embassies of the Kingdom of The Netherlands across Europe.

#BigArtRide brings art and people and innovation together across Europe to explore our shared cultural heritage in a fun way through virtual reality. It has been on a journey connecting people across cities in Europe since May. Thanks to Virtual Reality technology people in different countries can share a virtual bike ride, racing each other through virtual cities filled with artworks from across Europe.

The #BigArtRide tour celebrates the Dutch Presidency of the EU by building virtual bridges between people across Europe and is part of Europeana’s ‘280’ campaign to get people across Europe excited about our shared artistic heritage.

And now #BigArtRide is on the final leg of its journey, it arrives in Bratislava, Pribinova, 17 on 28th June 2016 and finishes on 30th June 2016. And at the same time the #BigArtRide will be in Amsterdam at Kattenburgerplein.

The Bratislava leg of #BigArtRide also celebrates the handover of the presidency of the European Union #EUPresidency from the Netherlands to Slovakia. June 30th is the last day of #BigArtRide and the last day of the Dutch Presidency.