Digital meets Culture

Athens, 22 January 2016

This workshop is the first celebration of the work Europeana Space project is doing in the domain of Education. During this workshop, current best practices for environments/applications to facilitate re-use of digital cultural heritage content in an educational context were examined. ‘Education’ here refers not only to the general school system but also to educational services in museums or lifelong-learning programmes.

This workshop presented the E-Space Educational Demonstrators, and also served to gain more feedback and see how further implementation of the developed tools in an educational context could best fit. The Europeana Space MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) was also be presented. A Demo room was available and open to allow workshop participants to explore the Demonstrator prototypes.

[Show as slideshow]

photos courtesy of Katerina Komninou and Fred Truyen

The presentation and discussions of demonstrators using digital cultural content innovatively should have a dual impact:

– students, teachers and other education professionals will acquire creative and technical skills through learning how to work with the tools/applications that are offered
– they will also become more aware of the vast and diverse repository of digital cultural heritage content available on line as a basis for teaching and learning materials that they can assemble or develop.

Onasis Cultural Centre in Athens, Greece

Programme is available HERE

This event was also part of the Hack the Book festival, the hackathon event of Open & Hybrid Publishing pilot, exploring the book as an evolving, visual and open medium: designers, artists, publishers, programmers, authors, poets, hackers and entrepreneurs are invited to a marathon on creative programming, design and entrepreneurial innovation which will redefine the book.

cover image: Rok Lipnik CC-BY 2.0

ITN-DCH project seeking for candidates - APPLICATIONS DEADLINE 15 JANUARY 2016

Full Time Early Stage Researcher (ESR) wanted in the field of of 2D/3D/4D Cultural assets.

Applications are invited from candidates who possess the necessary qualifications in order to fill one (1) full time Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher (ESR) Fellow Position in the Digital Heritage Research Lab of the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT) in the research fields of 2D/3D/4D Digitalization (automated methodologies for 2D and 3D data acquisition: photogrammetry, Laser Scanning, depth camera sensors, SfM etc.), Computer Vision (Image processing, geometric invariant visual features, data-preprocessing/filtering, Pattern recognition), Computer Graphics (modeling), Metadata enrichment for tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage, Big Data and Cloud Computing applications.

The selected Marie Curie ESR will work for 19 months within the ITN-Digital Cultural Heritage (ITN-DCH) Marie Curie ITN Programme which, is the only EU funded programme bringing together fourteen (14) leading European Institutions as full partners and nine (9) other as associated partners in a transnational network, aiming at implementing a multidisciplinary and intersectorial research and training programme between the academic and the industrial partners.

Download the full call (PDF, 454 Kb)

a set of shared principles for encouraging and supporting citizens’ engagement in cultural heritage and humanities research

RICHES and Civic Epistemologies present the Berlin Charter

During the International Conference “Digital Heritage and Innovation, Engagement and Identity”, held in Berlin on 12-13 November 2015, the partners of CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES (www.civic-epistemologies.eu) and RICHES (www.riches-project.eu) projects proposed the adoption of the Berlin Charter, a set of principles for encouraging and supporting citizens’ engagement in cultural heritage and humanities research in the digital age.

Neil Forbes (RICHES Project Coordinator) and Mauro Fazio (CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES Project Coordinator) confirmed the adoption of the Berlin Charter with a handshake.

The Charter is open to be adopted by all interested parties, namely private organisations, public institutions, artists, professionals, researchers and interested citizens.

Download here the Berlin Charter and learn how to adopt it.

the EC published about IPR Policy Brief, policy seminar and Berlin Charter

RICHES latest outcomes shared

In the EC website of Research and Innovation, at the section of Social Science and Humanities, the latest outcomes of Riches project were just published:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/index.cfm

The European Commission announces today new initiatives Towards a modern, more European copyright framework. EU-funded social sciences and humanities research proposes a right-based approach concerning digitalisation of European cultural heritage to policy makers and heritage institutions.

Research projects also launched the Berlin Charter supporting citizens’ engagement in cultural heritage and humanities research in the digital age.

RICHES policy brief (PDF, 671 KB)
Berlin charter
Policy Seminar: New Horizons For Cultural Heritage

Tallinn (Estonia), 10-11 December 2015

Creative reuse of cultural heritage and contemporary practices: challenges and opportunities in the digital world: E-Space II conference

Represented by the gracious cornflower, the national symbol of Estonia, the II Europeana Space International Conference took place in Tallinn on 10-11 December 2015.

This event, organized by the Estonian Ministry of Culture, intended to generate new perspectives for the wider re-use of cultural heritage and contemporary practices within a framework of creative experimentation and novel dialogue between multidisciplinary sectors. Next to interesting keynote speakers and round tables, the conference focused on the lessons learnt in the development of the project’s outputs and on moving towards sustainable results.

The conference was hosted at the astonishing location of the Niguliste Church in the Old Town of Tallinn. The Church was turned in a museum and also used for conferences and as a concert hall. Among other artworks, it hosts the exceptional Altarpiece by Herman Rode, one of the masterpieces in Estonian cultural heritage.

After the official opening by Estonian institutions and the welcome speech by the Project Coordinator Sarah Whatley, keynote speaker of day 1 was Mark Coniglio of Troika Ranch, internationally recognized as a pioneering force as an artist, technologist and as a teacher, with an inspiring speech on how creativity and collaborative practice in the artistic field (but not only there) fuels invention and offers the possibility to radically transform appropriated materials into something genuinely new. After that, Milena Popova (Europeana Foundation) and then project’s and Pilot’s representatives discussed on how to boost re-use of digital cultural heritage, in a round table chaired by Antonella Fresa (E-Space technical coordinator).

A networking session and a jazz concert happily concluded the day.

On the second day, heritage and creativity were the keywords. Speeches from international experts explored different aspects of the same topic: Monika Hagedorn-Saupe (SPK) discussed on digitization and its potential to encourage creativity and new cultural experiences in museums, Fred Truyen (KU Leuven) tackled the educational side of Europeana Space, presenting the upcoming MOOC Modular Open Online Course, and eventually Nasos Drosopoulos (NTUA) showcased E-Space interoperable platform for creative reuse of digital cultural heritage.

A final session chaired by Luigi Perissich (Confindustria Servizi Innovativi e Tecnologici – Italian technology Platform Future of Internet) was focused on creativity as an opportunity of growth in the cultural sector, including a speech on the digital single market strategy by Silver Tammik (Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications) and a final round table of experts, fostering interaction with the audience.

Details of the programme, the programme commitee, the complete list of speakers with biography and (coming soon) the slides they presented is available at http://tallinnconference2015.europeana-space.eu

a set of principles for encouraging and supporting citizens’ engagement in cultural heritage and humanities research in the digital age

Berlin Charter – the project’s legacy

During the International Conference “DIGITAL HERITAGE AND INNOVATION, ENGAGEMENT AND IDENTITY”, held in Berlin on 12-13 November 2015, the partners of CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES (www.civic-epistemologies.eu) and RICHES (www.riches-project.eu) projects proposed the adoption of the Berlin Charter, a set of principles for encouraging and supporting citizens’ engagement in cultural heritage and humanities research in the digital age.

Several European organisations and individuals have already agreed to sign the Charter and to advocate its principles in their own operations.

The Charter is open to be adopted by all interested parties, namely private organisations, public institutions, artists, professionals, researchers and interested citizens.

Should you wish to adopt the Berlin Charter, please contact:

Mauro Fazio (the Project Coordinator, mauro.fazio@mise.gov.it)
or
Antonella Fresa (the Project Technical Coordinator, fresa@promoter.it)

DOWNLOAD THE BERLIN CHARTER here: http://www.civic-epistemologies.eu/berlin-charter/

in the image above, Neil Forbes, the RICHES Project Coordinator, and Mauro Fazio, the CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES Project Coordinator, confirmed the adoption of the Berlin Charter with a handshake.

sharing knowledge and best practices in order to provide some answers to the pressing questions related to DCH and technologies

CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES @ Panel session at DISH 2015 Conference

The CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES project is continuing to be disseminated worldwide also after the end of the funding period.

DISH2015 conference is a perfect place for discussing the many challenges faced by cultural institutions, and the needs they have to make strategic decisions about their activities and services. The key aims of the conference were inspiration, knowledge, skills, innovation and networking.

Fred Truyen (from KU Leuven) and Neil Forbes (from Coventry University) continuing dissemination of CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES main results.

So, following the good feedback recently received in similar gatherings, once again Europeana Space, RICHES, Photoconsortium and Civic Epistemologies joined forces to progress on the analysis on the impact that the impressive amount of digitized cultural heritage (DCH) in Europe has, by making cultural heritage more accessible and by generating benefits to the content owners.

Neil Forbes from Coventry University and Fred Truyen from KU Leuven represented the CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES Consortium at the Conference. Neil introduced also the principles of the Berlin Declaration, as a main legacy of the project after the end of the funding period. The slides of the presentations are available for download (PDF, 3.2 Mb).

Neil Forbes, from Coventry University, presented CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES @ DISH2015, Rotterdam 7 December 2015

More information about the Panel session are available here: http://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/article/panel-at-dish-2015/

sharing knowledge and best practices in order to provide some answers to the pressing questions related to DCH and technologies

Panel session at DISH 2015 on Digital Cultural Heritage and its impact

It is of the utmost importance that the context of change generated by the advent of digitization and digital technologies, and its implication on the society at large, are discussed in as many occasions as possible. DISH2015 conference is a perfect place for discussing the many challenges faced by cultural institutions, and the needs they have to make strategic decisions about their activities and services. The key aims of the conference were inspiration, knowledge, skills, innovation and networking.

It’s important to assess the sociological impact and the context of change brought in by digitization and digital technologies: how DCH participate in the community-building processes and social cohesion of the “new” European society? How can DCH help cultural institutions to renew and be closer to the society and the education sector? And how can DCH be re-used to unlock its business potential fostering economic growth? Crucially, generating new employment and economic rewards by leveraging on DCH needs the development of strategic alliances between sectors and actors which are not used to work together.

[Show as slideshow]

Further, digitization has been so far a matter mainly for archives and memory institutions, but cultural heritage is also in the hands of private citizens (e.g. early photography). It is needed a more participative approach so that smaller archives, individuals, collectors have the possibility to access digitization facilities, training and services. This can pave the way for EU citizens to play a co-creative role and participate in the research on cultural heritage and digital humanities. Next to that, we see examples of how the accelerating pace of IT developments and its usage by ordinary people is going far beyond society’s ability to make sense (and make sensible decisions) of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ within the context of existing legal and moral codes.

Neil Forbes from Coventry University, Fred Truyen from KU Leuven, Lizzy Komen from Sound & Vision and Bart Bonnevalle from Noterik were warmly welcomed in a full room and discussed about these topics fostering interaction and networking with the audience. The slides of the presentations are available for download (PDF, 3.2 Mb).

More information about DISH: www.dish2015.nl

Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm, 7 April 2016

PREFORMA Open Source Preservation Workshop – Serving the Cultural Heritage

Open Source Preservation Workshop – Serving the Cultural Heritage is the first in a series of international events planned by PREFORMA.

The event will feature 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 all the attendees can share experiences, meet the PREFORMA developers and learn about the tools.

The workshop will take place in Stockholm on April 7, 2016, and will be hosted at the National Library of Sweden.

This event is aimed at anyone interested in digital preservation and cultural heritage: developers who want to contribute code to the PREFORMA tools; memory institutions or other cultural heritage organisations involved in (or planning) digital preservation initiatives; standardisation bodies maintaining the technical specifications of preservation file formats; any other person interested in cooperating with us in defining open digital preservation standards.

REGISTER HERE BEFORE 31 MARCH 2016

Participation in the event is free of charge.

EVENT WEBSITE

http://opensourceworkshop.preforma-project.eu

FURTHER INFORMATION

The event will be held in English.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact Claudio Prandoni (prandoni@promoter.it).

Leuven, 27 November 2015: voyage in time through photography

Photographic Memories Workshop in Leuven

On Friday, November 27th the E-Space Photography Pilot in collaboration with the Leuven City Archive hosted the “Photographic Memories Workshop”. Seniors, students, citizens of Leuven and surrounding areas were invited to join for a voyage in time, through the stories hidden in our photographic heritage and a Wet Collodion demonstration, and back to the present with the most modern digitization techniques.

Welcomed by the introduction of the Photography Pilot leader Fred Truyen, participants had the possibility to have their family photos digitized in high quality by digitization specialist Bruno Vandermeulen, to know better the City Archive and its photographic collections, and to enjoy a demonstration of the traditional Wet Collodion technique by photographer Frederik Van den Broeck. Throughout the day more than 210 photographs were collected and digitized under the licenses CC-BY-NC, CC-BY or Public Domain. Support about licencing was provided by colleague Barbara Dierickx of Packed.

The day included the exhibition “All Our Yesterdays” that was again set up, featuring some of the images that had been digitized during the EuropeanaPhotography project and shown to the public only once before and for a very limited time (February-March 2015).

This event is part of the activities to prepare the Photography Hackathon taking place in Leuven in February 2016.