Digital meets Culture

After the scientific conference in Leuven, the Belgian edition of All Our Yesterdays was inaugurated on 30th January

The final step of Europeana Photography took place in Leuven on 29-30 January 2015, with the closing scientific conference and the the official vernissage of the Belgian edition of All Our Yesterdays (open in the period 1 February – 15 March).

The conference title is The Impact of Digitization on Photographic Heritage: Memories Reframed. Hosted by CS Digital (KU Leuven) and the Lieven Gevaert Centre for Photography in Campus Library Arenberg, this event assembled scholars from the field of photography and professionals from photo-archives, in order to develop an understanding of responsible archival practices towards photographic heritage in the context of the promotion of public access through digital portals. Of course, all the content providers of Europeana Photography project participated in the conference showing a selection of stories and of the photographic masterpieces held in their archives.

Topics of the conference included archival practices for photographic heritage, digitization and preservation, Europeana, public exposure and the archival mission. Among the speakers there were important academic names such as Elizabeth Edwards (De Montfort University, Leicester – UK) and Simon Tanner (King’s College, London – UK), Joanna Zylinska (Goldsmiths University of London), Jan Baetens (KU Leuven – BE) and many others. Project presentations and an IPR roundtable completed the programme.

The programme is available here.

At the end of the conference there was the vernissage to celebrate the Belgian edition of All Our Yesterdays, that, besides the exhibition, included events for schools, seniors and amateurs as well as a PechaKucha Night, the first one to be held in Leuven.

Official website: allouryesterdays.be

London, 9-12 Febuary 2015

10th International Digital Curation Conference

“Ten years back, ten years forward: achievements, lessons and the future for digital curation”

For a decade IDCC has brought together leaders and experts in digital curation and the significance of good curation to research and innovation is now well recognised across the globe. The first Digital Curation Conference took place in Bath in September 2005; one year after the Digital Curation Centre was launched. Since the inaugural conference they have covered a range of curation issues from the simple question of “What is Digital Curation”, through to more complex issues of infrastructure, radical sharing and open data and how to encourage collaboration and create a curation community. Content has covered topical research, bold looks into the future as well as distillations of lessons learnt from practice.

IDCC15 aimed to take a 10-year view whether into the past, present or future, to assess the progress and to help identify and stimulate debate on the critical digital curation questions for the future, focusing on how to move forward building on what has been learned.

The 10th International Digital Curation Conference was held from Monday 9 February to Thursday 12 February 2015 at 30 Euston Square, London.

30 Euston Square is a building located at the corner of Euston Road and Melton Street, London NW1. Originally built as the headquarters of an assurance company, it has since been converted to form the headquarters of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RGCP).

The main conference took place over the first two days followed by two further days of workshops and other satellite events.

For further information visit the Conference website.

Madrid, 19-20 January 2015

HOLA CLOUD Project Kick Off Meeting

The HOLA CLOUD project consortium met in Madrid on 19 and 20 January for the project kick off meeting.

Image used under Creative Commons from Flickr user cuellar

HOLA CLOUD targets to establish effective mechanisms for efficient collaboration among the members of the software, services and Cloud computing community building on a decade of experiences acquired by people who are themselves core members of this community, and extends this collaboration to stakeholders who can turn the community knowledge into sustainable economic growth. This will enable companies, governments, and politicians to discover best practice solutions in different domain applications, including the cultural heritage one, and to identify future challenges that must be addressed to move European software intensive industries forward.

The HOLA CLOUD project international consortium comprises EU recognised R&D companies, Universites and Communication experts; a multidisciplinary mix of high level skills that will boost the success of the project results.

Project website: www.cloudfutures.eu

2 thematic workshops, one about IPR and a technical one, will take place in March 2015. Register Now!

E-Space thematic workshops 2015

Important appointments organized by Europeana Space project in March 2015!

The objective of Europeana Space is to increase and enhance the creative industries’ safe use of digital cultural content available in online repositories, by delivering a range of resources to support their engagement. This will help unlocking the business potential of digital cultural heritage.

Both events are free entrance upon registration and stakeholders representing European creative industries, technology-based enterprises, the cultural heritage sector and higher education are warmly invited to join.

IPR WORKSHOP: 2nd March 2015, Coventry (UK)

www.europeana-space.eu/ipr-workshop/

Confirmed Speakers: Sarah Whatley (Coventry University, project’s coordinator), Charlotte Waelde (University of Exeter), Prodromos Tsiavos (Postscriptum), Frederik Temmermans, Peter Schelkens, Ann Dooms (iMinds).

A workshop focused on IPR that considers content rights in a non traditional way. Rather than only focussing on different licensing models, this workshop aims to make content providers aware of technical frameworks and advances that support better management of licenses.

The workshop is planned h. 9.30 – 17.30, including business lunch and an evening reception with networking session h. 18.00 – 19.30.

PDF flyer of the event

TECHNICAL WORKSHOP: 23 March 2015, Brussels (Belgium)

www.europeana-space.eu/technical-workshop/

Confirmed Speakers: Antonella Fresa (Promoter srl, Technical Coordinator), Nasos Drosopoulos (National Technical University of Athens).

In this technical workshop it will be presented the architecture and implementation choices for the Technical Space, specifically:

The Data Infrastructure that includes the retrieval and storage layers for content and metadata from available sources.
The Metadata Processing Unit that integrates available services for the management and manipulation of metadata resources.
The Access APIs that constitute a set of interfaces that will be made available for the delivery of resources and the creation of applications.

Discussion and interaction with invited stakeholders will focus on validating and expanding the specification of functional and non functional requirements of the Technical Space in order to fulfil the needs of a wide user base.

The workshop opens with a public session including lunch/networking, on the 23rd March 2015 h. 9.30 – 14.00. The second part of the workshop, which continues until the 24th March is on invitation.

PDF flyer of the event

Learn More about Europeana Space: www.europeana-space.eu

To look for new possibilities and funding to exploit the results of the two projects

Joint cooperation between PREFORMA and APARSEN

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between PREFORMA and APARSEN to look for new possibilities and funding to exploit the results of the two projects in joint initiatives, at European and national level, around the theme of digital preservation.

PREFORMA is a Pre-Commercial Procurement project co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the FP7 ICT Programme with the aim to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term and to give memory institutions full control of the process of the conformity tests of files to be ingested into archives.

APARSEN is a Network of Excellence that brings together an extremely diverse set of practitioner organizations and researchers in order to bring coherence, cohesion and continuity to research into barriers to the long-term accessibility and usability of digital information and data, exploiting our diversity by building a long-lived Virtual Centre of Digital Preservation Excellence.

impressive progress for Europeana Space pilot about smart television, and a hackathon is happening soon!

“Rewind” prototype for EuropeanaTV pilot created

Rewind app design, VBOT.TV, CC-BY-NC

by Kelly Mostert, Sound & Vision (NISV)

On the 19th of November 2014 the EuropeanaTV pilot members took part in an interactive workshop to create a SmartTV application that lets you travel back to historical events. The workshop took place in the offices of Noterik in Amsterdam, where the pilot members tried to develop a basic core app much in the spirit of an actual hackathon. The resulting prototype app called “Rewind” was pitched at Waag Society on the last day, which started off a fruitful meeting with partners Waag Society and Culture Label to discuss hackathon strategy.

Present at the workshop were Daniel Ockeloen from Noterik, Marco Rendina of Cinecitta Luce, Bartek Czerwinski of Proton Labs, Alexandros Chortaras of the National Technical University of Athens and Kelly Mostert and Lizzy Komen of Sound & Vision.

Setup of the workshop

The workshop was split up in two tracks: the design track and the development track. This was specifically done to give the developer (Noterik) time to work with the EuropeanaTV toolkit and test what could realistically be programmed in two days.

[Show as slideshow]

The activities planned out over the two day workshop were as follows:

Day 1

#1 Go over the use case and discuss core features to be developed in 2 days: what can realistically be coded in the next 4-8 hours? What is the basic technology of the app?

#2 While developer starts coding, design group further fleshes out the use case for prototyping: which foreground/design features are needed to enhance the viewer experience? Which background processes need to occur for the technology to work and be smart?

#3 Creating an elevator pitch (5 slides) to summarize the core innovation of the app; addressing the target usergroup, which new experience are we creating?

Day 2

#1 Brainstorming on interaction design and wireframes – using flip-overs and paper sheets: what do we want it to look like? What goes where?

#2 Creating the design document: Statement of goals and project, Functional description, User interface & Milestones

Results

At the end of the pilot workshop we had three things produced: a basic core app with working functionality, evocative wireframes showing the user interface of the prototype app, and a design document with an extensive description of “Rewind” – a full-fleshed EuropeanaTV prototype! The app lets you travel back to historical events, such as the Olympics of 1962. Now it was time to take our idea to the market, which we proudly did the next day in a meeting with Culture Label and Waag.

Watch our elevator pitch slides:

From prototype to incubation phase: EuropeanaTV hackathon strategy

Having experienced our own mini hackathon, it was time to discuss official hackathon plans with Christine van den Horn of Waag Society and Simon Cronshaw of Culture Label. Activities were planned in terms of selecting participants, stakeholders, sponsors, creating a communication strategy and ideas to assemble and incentivize teams. We are excited to announce the EuropeanaTV hackathon on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of May at Waag Society in Amsterdam with inspiring pre-events on March 25th and April 8th.

More information on the hackathon soon to follow – stay tuned!

Paris, 21-22 January 2015

Museum Expressions launches Museum Connections!

To celebrate its 20th Edition Museum Expressions, the gift and cultural marking trade show, launched Museum Connections, an innovative conference programme focusing on innovation in Museums which gathered key museum and cultural heritage actors from around the world.

The event gave to the attendees the opportunity to meet museum professionals, gain new ideas and best practices to be applied in their institution and be inspired by those who build the Museum of the Future. Through various projects, thanks to innovative and connected marketing, they have changed the way to connect Art to the public. Branding social media, crowdfunding, audience development, loyalty programmes, e-shop and a new way of visiting museums…

For more information visit http://www.museumconnections.com/

Milan, 21-23 January 2015

MeLa final event: Envisioning 21st Century Museums

MeLa project – European Museums in an age of migrations concluded its four-year research programme with a three-day event, aimed at providing a critical overview on the main findings ensuing from its investigations and a forward-looking discussion about the future of European museums.

In adopting the concept of “migration” as paradigm of modernity, the MeLa project investigated the role of museums within the contemporary socio-cultural context, in order to identify new practises, tools and ways of representation and consumption able to foster an updated idea of museum, as space for dialogue and social cohesion in a transcultural Europe.

During the project final event, held at Politecnico di Milano on 21-23 January 2015, a highly interdisciplinary panel of scholars and policy makers from all over the world triggered a multi-perspective debate, bringing together the latest insights on museums’ challenges and chances in the framework of the contemporary global and multi-cultural scenario. The initiative was conceived as an occasion for going on and nurturing the debate on the transformation of the contemporary museums, for starting new reflections and opening new prospects.

The event opened on 21 January, with the inauguration of an exhibition showing the results and products of the research, and continued on 22 January with a seminar based on the interventions by four key-note speakers.

23 January’s programme was particularly rich: in the morning, the main research managers of MeLa led a critical dialogue around the topic “European Museums in an Age of Migrations”; in the afternoon, a round table involved European Commission representatives, experts of the museum sector, members of the international scientific community and policy makers with the aim of stimulating a multidisciplinary debate on the theme “European Museums for Reflective Societies” and reflecting upon the issues, challenges and opportunities today influencing the relationship between people and museums.

Download the event programme here

MeLa* European Museums in an age of migrations is a four-year Research Project funded by the European Commission (FP7), which aims to delineate new approaches for museums in relation with the conditions posed by the migrations of people, cultures, ideas, information and knowledge in the global world. It aims moreover to evaluate how much these changes can interfere with the organisation, the communication strategies, the physical structures and the architecture of the exhibition places. Its main objectives are to advance knowledge in the field and to support museum communities, practitioners, experts and policymakers in developing new missions and forms of museums and libraries in “an age of migrations”.

Results of last four years’ research activities were widely represented and discussed in the framework of workshops, seminars and international conferences and they are accessible through the MeLa Book Series, including several open-access digital publications.

* “mela” is the Sanskrit word for “gathering” or “meeting.” Today it is referred to intercultural encounters, intended as opportunities for community building.

in November 2014, the last plenary meeting of Europeana Photography before the final big events in Leuven

Europeana Photography – Bratislava plenary meeting

One of the most interesting partners of Europeana Photography is Divadelny Ustav, the national Slovak Theater Institute based in Bratislava. The priority of the Theatre Institute is its scientific and researching activity consisting of research of Slovak drama covering the time from establishing the first permanent professional stage in 1920 until today; it also takes part in other research works, co-operates with its partner institutions in various research activities concerning theatre culture in Slovakia and abroad, it takes part in organizing scientific symposiums, seminars, colloquia and other forms of presentation of their research activity. Divadelny Ustav participates in Europeana Photography as content provider, with an extraordinarly valuable collection of vintage photos about theatre performances and Slovak actors.

Divadelny Ustav was the host of the project’s important meeting in November 2014, during the Slovak month of photography. On the 6th November, the group celebrated the official opening of PHOTOCONSORTIUM, the spin-off association which will build on the legacy of Europeana Photography. In the evening of the 6th, there was the official opening of the exhibition “Teatralny Svet – The Theatrical World 1839-1939“, where the project coordinator prof. Fred Truyen had the possibility to speak about the project and its important role in unveiling bits of history through the photographs.

On the 7th, in the national heritage location of Studio 12, that is the seat of Divadelny Ustav, a plenary meeting of the project took place, the last one before the big events to be organized in Leuven in late January 2015.

Focus of the plenary was the finalization of the +430.000 metadata of early photographs to be provided to Europeana.eu, the European digital library where the images digitizited by the project will be retrievable and accessible to everybody, and the organization of the final conference of the project, which will be joint to the opening of a new edition of the exhibition All Our Yesterdays, with a very special Belgian flavour that was added to the original format of the exhibition (held in Pisa in April-June 2014 for the first time) thanks to the cooperation with the Leuven City Archive.

Learn more on the Leuven events:

International conference website and registration here

All Our Yesterdays in Leuven-Heverlee, official website: http://www.allouryesterdays.be

Great participation by the AICI associates in ‘Cultural Heritage: Recalibrating Relationships’

AICI at the RICHES International Conference

How can cultural institutions renew and remake themselves? How can they foster the shift from traditional hierarchies of Cultural Heritage (CH) to more fluid, decentred practices?

The ISIA Roma poster

Both the RICHES European Consortium and the Association of Italian Cultural Institutions (AICI) are actively engaged in answering this question, central theme of the International Conference “Cultural Heritage: Recalibrating Relationships” held in Pisa, at the Museum of Graphics of Palazzo Lanfranchi, on 4-5 December 2014.

The Venetian Institute and Ugo and Olga Levi Foundation’s posters

As RICHES official associate partner, AICI brought its valuable contribution to the project event, participating in the conference and related poster session with several representatives from its member institutes. Among them: Carmine Marinucci, AICI Secretary-General, presenting his association and Only Italia Education, innovative project for a modern structure devoted to sharing Italian and European cultural heritage with other cultures in the world; Pasquale Smiraglia, Chair of the National Academic Union, grouping the most important Italian academies as Accademia dei Lincei, Accademia della Crusca and the Venetian Institute for Science, Letters and Arts; Giordano Bruno, Director of ISIA Roma – High Institute for Artistic Industries aimed at the training of highly professional designers as well as the preservation and development of the finest European intellectual and teaching tradition – together with his collaborators Marco Pietrosante, Tommaso Salvatori and Giulia Romiti; the Ugo and Olga Levi Foundation for music studies and the Venetian Institute for Science, Letters and Arts.

The ISIA representatives at the conference

Since 1992, The AICI members are involved in research activities and the promotion and preservation of cultural heritage. AICI holds the heritage of the enterprises, the social and political movements and all the organisations that characterised the modernisation process of Italy.

The archives of the over hundred AICI-afferent cultural institutions are relevant historical sources, preserving the complex Italian identity and telling the birth of a European political culture.

The Institutes cover all the territorial divisions and act as a plural organisation combining the preservation of book and archival goods with the promotion of relevant cultural activities. They are historical sources and tools for the development of the social, political and technical dimension of the Italian and European culture; in the digitisation of cultural heritage, joined with innovative and original forms of dissemination, AICI identifies a strategic and overriding instrument.