Digital meets Culture

This important conference was held on 29-30 November 2012, in Krakow, Poland.

Conference: ‘Heritage in the web – different approaches to digitalization’

by Aneta Kopczacka, Museum of History of Photography in Krakow

Since 1997 Museum of History of Photography in Krakow runs website and systematically adds more pictures to online catalogue. Since then MHF was becoming more and more involved in digitization and sharing content issues. In recent years the matter of digitization got more common and more important. Being aware of the problems that accompany digitization process, we organized conference “Heritage in the web – different approaches to digitalization” to start professional discussion and give different people and different institutions opportunity to meet and talk on current problems.

photo by Mirosław Żak

The event took place in Krakow (Poland) in three attractive locations: Museum of History of Photography, Municipality of Krakow and in Jagiellonian University. Scope of the conference was to gather specialist from different fields, all connected with the matter of digitization to exchange knowledge and experience. Very important point was to show the dissonance between theory and everyday reality. Therefore participants were in one hand employees of different museums and other cultural institutions in whole country (public institutions, foundations, societies as well as private companies) and in the other digitalization and aggregation experts, representatives of Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, lawyers and archivists. The conference was an opportunity for regular employees of cultural institutions to ask questions and dispel many doubts about digitization, perspectives of development and current problems. We wanted to give participants chance to discuss these things officially and collectively as well as privately during the breaks.

MHF as an institution well experienced in digitization processes we wanted to give participants practical, useful information about it. That is why, as a consequence of conference we planned our next step which will be digitization workshop in March 2013.

One of the most important matter presented and discussed during the event were IPR matters – problem of copyright and sharing material in the Internet. Another valid and complex topic we wanted to introduce was the problem of keywords vocabularies.

Significant goal of whole event was promotion of EuropeanaPhotography and giving solid information about the project. We distributed EP leaflets and other materials. Hubert Francuz gave the presentation titled “Strategies of sharing. Case of EuropeanaPhotography project”. Mr. Francuz spoke greatly about benefits of participating in consortia such as EP and shown how Europeana website is working and – what even more important – what end users can find there. Crucial for the presentation was giving practical information about the project itself and about places where people can find more accurate data. After speech given by Mr. Francuz some representatives of different institutions asked about possibility of creating or joining existing consortia.

photo by Mirosław Żak

To sum up. The conference was a big success. Approximately 200 people participated in session during two days. We distributed evaluation questionnaires among all participants and they gave us very positive feedback. The event was well received and developing the idea of meeting on this fields seems to be very important. We also noticed quite wide interest in participating in digitization workshop.

[Show as slideshow]

Next issue will be entirely devoted about photography

UNCOMMON CULTURE call for articles: history of photography

Uncommon Culture provides unique perspectives on a rich variety of cultural activities in Europe. Examining cultural institutions and their collections, this magazine gives new insight into diverse cultural activities.

The next planned issue of Uncommon Culture journal is entirely devoted to history of photography, with special contributions from the EuropeanaPhotography project.

Types of Contributions: the following types of papers are published in Uncommon Culture:

invited papers presenting the topics relevant to the issue (up to 20 edited pages, not more than 60000 characters)- some famous names are very welcome:)
research papers, and reports describing the situation in particular countries (3- 8 pages),
Interviews with project coordinators or project presentations, or in our case with really famous contemporary 1-2 photographers
short notes, i.e. book reviews, conference reports, short news (max. 2 pages).

Manuscript Preparation: the text of a manuscript should be written in clear and concise English. The form similar to “camera-ready” with an attached separate file – containing illustrations, tables and photographs – is preferred. For the details of the preferred format of the manuscripts, authors should consult the articles already published www.uncommonculture.org and the authors guidance available on the journal Website.

The main text of a paper using a font size of 12 pt can be divided into sections (numbered 1, 2, …). The title page should include: manuscript title, authors’ names and affiliations with e-mail addresses and their CVs – ca. 6 lines long each.

Illustrations, photographs and tables provided in the digital form should be clearly named and send in JPG or Tiff format.

Manuscript Submission and Processing. Manuscript should be submitted preferably via Internet Editorial System (IES) – an online submission and peer review system www.uncommonculture.org. or by e-mail as Word.rtf document to the address icimss@icimss.edu.pl or Maria.Sliwinska@uni.torun.pl

If an e-mail delivery option is chosen, then the submission of the manuscript in two files is preferred: “Article File” containing the complete manuscript (with all figures and tables embedded in the text) and “Figures File” containing illustrations, photographs and tables. In the submission letter or on a separate page in “Figures File”, the full postal address, e-mail and phone and/or fax numbers for all co-authors must be given. The corresponding author should be indicated.

In order to submit the manuscript via IES, the authors (first-time users) must create an author account to obtain a user ID and password required to enter the system.

Copyright Transfer. The submission of a manuscript means that it has not been published previously in the same form, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that – if accepted – it will not be published elsewhere. It also means that authors agree to transfer their copyrights to the journal editorial office. The transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microfilm or any other reproductions of similar nature, and translations. It also includes the right to adapt the article for use in conjunction with computer systems and programs, including reproduction or publication in machine-readable form and incorporation in retrieval systems.

All of Uncommon Culture’s content is also available freely to anyone with Internet connectivity. Contributors to Uncommon Culture are encouraged to release their work into the public domain or to select a Creative Commons license.

Review and amendment procedures. Each submitted manuscript is subject to a peer- review procedure, and the publication decision is based on reviewers’ comments; if necessary, Authors may be invited to revise their manuscripts. On acceptance, manuscripts are subject to editorial amendment to suit the journal style.
Proofs. Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author by e-mail and should be returned within 48 hours of receipt.

Author Benefits. Publication in the journal is free of charge. A sample copy of the journal and 5 copies of the article off-prints will be sent to the corresponding author free of charge.

Contact:

E-mail: icimss@icimss.edu.pl

URL: www.uncommonculture.org

Phone: (+48) 56 62-22-411

Post address:
Editorial Office of Uncommon Culture
ICIMSS
ul. Krasinskiego 121 b/113
87-100 Toruń, Poland

Bratislava Theatre Institute is a partner of EuropeanaPhotography project

Theatre hidden in old photographs

by Anna Grusková, curator and project coordinator, Theatre Institute Bratislava – Divadelny Ustav

We who like to attend theatre productions, we all know, how powerful and sometimes lifelong experience can leave a single performance – despite the fact that it only exists in time of meeting of artists with audience. At the present moment, at which the theatre exists, consists its strength and weakness. After a season or two, sometimes even sooner, no one has a chance to repeat the experience that touched us so deeply. Maybe in a year or two we would see the same staging differently – but we do not have a chance. It is even more difficult than in life: in our personal story, sometimes we could turn time back to find a new way, try it again … Theatre is team art of artists and audience, and the chances of a successful return are slight.

Slovak National Theatre, N.V.Gogol The Inspector General 1936 ©Divadelný ústav Theatre Institute Bratislava

More recent theatre productions are captured on video in a better or worse quality, therefore we could reconstruct them, even in the absence of the most valuable part of it – without the meeting of people in the same time and space. Theatre criticism could also help to preserve something of the essence that a staging brought in particular time and particular space, but it is transformed by the writer’s personality. At first glance, theatre photography looks objectively – on a closer inspection, however, especially in the elderly time, we realize, how important role in the capture of live theatre through the viewfinder of the camera has a standard of photographic technique, and lastly – behind a camera is always a man with his or her taste, experience, influenced by many other non-artistic factors.

Comic quartett Poverty. 2nd half of the 19. century ©Divadelný ústavTheatre Institute Bratislava

Old photos are often the only witness to the theatrical life of our great grandparents that we have. They are usually identified, but sometimes we do not know anything. We look into faces of strangers in theatrical costumes, see their fascination by Thalia, we realize the transience of theatre, of nationalities that for example used to live in the territory of contemporary Slovakia, we are confronted with our own mortality.

Theatre Institute as a partner of the European project Europeana Photography began in 2012 to digitize and describe the oldest theatre photos in today’s Slovakia. Until December 2012, has been digitized and described a collection of more than 4300 old photographs, created before 1939. Thus we create a basis for a valuable collection of the oldest theatre photographs in the territory of the contemporary Slovakia – and for a future exhibition and a book. In the preparation of the collection we cooperate with the Slovak National Archive, the Slovak National Library, the Slovak National Museum, the Bratislava City Museum and other institutions and individuals.

To our collection gradually arrive more and more theatrical and even para-theatrical old photos from the period 1839-1939. They capture not only amateur and professional theatre productions in the territory of the contemporary Slovakia, but also urban and rural staged celebrations and social life with theatrical attributes (balls, military parades, memorial exposures etc.), portraits of theatre personalities, theatre spaces (interiors and exteriors), theatre architecture, theatrical activities of Slovak minorities living abroad and also staged photographs with strong theatrical elements. The result will be in 2015 a unique collection of digitized old photographs that would otherwise be lost, discarded or remain forgotten.

Divadelny Ustav website: http://www.theatre.sk/en/homepage/

Lisbon, 29-30 November 2012

Linked Heritage Third Plenary Meeting and WP Technical meetings

The pioneering Alameda Campus will host the third plenary meeting of Linked Heritage project

Lisbon will host the Linked Heritage Third Plenary Meeting and WP Technical meetings (Reserved to partners).

Linked Heritage – Coordination of Standards and Technologies for the enrichment of Europeana – is a 30 month EU project, started on 1st April 2011.

Linked Heritage has 3 main objectives: I) to contribute large quantities of new content to Europeana, from both the public and private sectors;

II) to demonstrate enhancement of quality of content, in terms of metadata richness, re-use potential and uniqueness;

III) to demonstrate enable improved search, retrieval and use of Europeana content.

The consortium includes representatives of all the key stakeholder groups from 20 EU countries.

The Plenary represents an interesting and useful meeting to know the state of the art of the project and to plan the activities for the next months.

Digitalmeetsculture.net will follow the proceedings of the meeting!!!

Related Contributions

“Going Digital” – The Israeli Museums experience – Ram Shimony, The Israeli Minerva 9th Annual Conference, Jerusalem (13-14 November 2012)

Venue:
IST – Instituto Superior Técnico – http://www.ist.utl.pt/en/
(The IST has two camp, Alameda and TagusPark; the meeting will be at Alameda (image on the left)
Address: Av. Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001 Lisboa – Portugal

Date: 29-30 November 2012

The meeting is reserved to the partners.

How to reach the IST: http://www.ist.utl.pt/en/about-IST/location/

At the IST, the meeting place will be the Congress Center (“Centro de Congressos”) in the building “Civil” (the building of the civil engineering department).

Public transports are very convenient, as the campus is in a central area.

Download the full agenda (PDF, 352 Kb)

View Linked Heritage related articles –>

Heritage and Tourism Sustainability Move on the Right Path

ATHENA Workshop Training for the ‘Management Plan’ in Amman

Silvia Barbone (Director of Jaylag) discusses point of detail with one of the groups

It’s a marathon, hardcore training in the field of site-management sustainability to upgrade the level of culture and create a permanent link between heritage and tourism.

This is the sum total of the recent workshop titled “Training for Sustainability, Site Management Plan: From Theory to Practice”, that was attended by 39 site managers and other archaeological professionals in Amman between 18-22 November, 2012.

The training was organized by the Department of Antiquities/ATHENA Project and conducted by Silvia Barbone, Director of Jaylag in Brussels and London. She flew directly to Amman to give the five-day session that was attended by those who work in the field from Amman and different archaeological directorates in the governorates of Jordan.

ATHENA Project Manager Mr Nizar Al Adarbeh spoke at the beginning of the first session contextualizing the workshop within the ATHENA Project philosophy to enhance and sustain ancient theater sites by providing new techniques, methods and concepts to improve the level of sustainability. The Ancient Theaters Enhancement for New Actualities is funded by the European Union under its Euromed Heritage 4 Program.

Silvia Barbone said it is important to understand the linkage between heritage and tourism sustainability when creating a management plan to realize that great benefit can be achieved in the end for tourism.

Right from the beginning she set the tone, telling the trainees they will be expected to come up with a concrete management plan that would integrate all the elements combining heritage, sustainability, tourism, local actors including NGOs, and the public and private sector.

Animated discussion at working groups level.

As this was a practical training workshop, she first spoke to the trainees who sat on a U-shaped table about the different features of a management plan, different sites involved, criteria expected to follow and the international standards involved and should be followed.

The different processes were discussed, importance of terminology, external and internal linkages involved, local community involvement as well as different national, regional and state actors.

The trainees were split in the afternoons into groups that represented different archaeological sites like the Amman Citadel, Karak, Mkeiwer, Jarash, Umm Rassass, Umm Qais and Umm Jmal all of which are important archaeological and heritage sites in Jordan that existed since time immemorial.

These sites are important because the groups are expected to present management plans for each of these important ruins to be completed in 20th December, 2012, which is after all the purpose of this training workshop.

Linked to this, something which Barbone talked about is the international certification the trainees might be able to get at the end of the course when the second part of the training is held between 6-10 January, 2013.

The PM4ESD (Project Management for European Sustainable Development) is an important accreditation by APMG-International that is promoted at the European Union and Mediterranean levels and will be the first to be applied in Jordan among the ATHENA trainees.

Barbone stated that the eligibility to sit the exam is commensurate with each group presenting a draft of the Management Plan and taking a mock test which they have to pass.

The sessions during the five days were highly interactive between the trainer and trainees. Away from the U-shaped table, the trainees networked with each other as separate groups. The trainer stayed in the background, going among different groups to see if any help was needed.

At the U-shaped table

At the end of the afternoon sessions trainees were back to the U-shaped table to present their findings to the whole of the groups. For the whole four days—the last being practical fieldwork in the Jarash ruins taken as a practice study to the theory—the atmosphere was productive and congenial.

The interaction was underlined during the group sessions, and which continued during the field visits, with much animated discussion between the members who were from different archaeological directorates, like those from Karak in the south to Amman in the center and Umm Qais in the north.

The training was important because it aimed at readjusting the mindset and the creation of methodological linkages between heritage and tourism. Managers and professionals in archaeology were for instance introduced to new concepts of tourism sustainability.

Thinking hats and issues of balance were important and stressed between the two. Trainees were reminded of the need for a balancing process that extended to the heritage site, its surrounding environment, local community, the business angle, question of knowledge community that involve universities and research institutes.

The last day of the session was spent amongst the Jarash archaeological ruins. It was a field trip for practice onsite work. The trainees started their observations at the car park and handicraft shops with Barbone telling them to make an assessment of the place.

They looked for obvious things like signage about the location and services available like toilets for visitor’s as they made their way through the old, now restored Hadrian Gate onwards to the ruins, and passing through the Roman Hippodrome.

Before they went to the South Theater which is one of the sites under study in the ATHENA Project, they passed through to the Jarash Visitor’s Center which also house the offices of the Department of Antiquities, whose hall was filled with information on the Jarash ruins.

At the South Theater everyone sat and contemplated at the detailed structure of the place. A well-worthwhile visit for the expected management plan.

An overview about Augmented Reality experimentations, from our referents at Dedale.

Augmented reality: enriching culture

Augmented Reality was initially used for military, industrial, and medical applications, but was soon applied to commercial and entertainment areas as well. In the cultural sector, it can be of particular relevance in the fields of archaeology, architecture, art, city planning, for applications in tourism, education, social innovation… At the moment, the most relevant applications for cultural field are webcam augmented reality and mobile (or handheld) augmented reality. They provide enriched, interactive and digitally manipulable information.

CultureClic | Augmented culture

CultureClic is a mobile cultural application to discover geolocated works of arts in high definition, to access to french museums information, and to discover cultural events, through augmented Reality:

900 art works geolocated (mainly in Paris) are accessible in Augmented Reality, and through map and lists.
Thanks to the Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN) catalogue and Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF – French National Library) archives, users can discover how the places were several centuries before: the building of the Eiffel Tower, the first pictures of Notre-Dame…
1350 French museums are geolocated, with their practical information and cultural offer.

For now, the application is available on IPhone, and will be soon available on other platforms. This project has been developed by the Living Lab e-marginal, for Proxima Mobile, in cooperation with BNF, RMN and French Ministry of Culture and communication.

http://www.cultureclic.fr/

HistoryPin | Pin your history to the world

HistoryPin is a collaborative website and application, offering the opportunity for people to share and explore personal archives and memories. Everyone can add geolocated photographic images, videos, audio clips and descriptive and narrative text. HistoryPin is collaborating with over 200 libraries, archives and museums around the world to help them share their content with a global community of users. The main long-term objectives of this project are the followings:

To get as many people as possible taking part in the history of their family, streets, country and world.
To bring neighbourhoods together around local history and help people feel closer to the place they live in.
To get people from different generations talking more, sharing more and coming together more often.
To conserve and open up global archives for everyone to enjoy, learn from and improve.
To create a study resource for schools and universities.
To be the largest global archive of human history.

The website allows exploring the map and adding content. Thanks to the application, people can explore the map, add content, but also explore the streets: the app uses the camera view to display nearby images. By selecting the image, it can be overlaid onto the modern view to create an historical comparison.

http://www.historypin.com

This project has been developed by We are what we do, a not-for-profit company based in London, www.wearewhatwedo.org

CYNETART AR POP UP CITY Dresden| Augmented and mixed reality: Parcours

CYNETART, the international festival for computer based art in Dresden, is a countrywide and internationally recognised platform of digital culture – providing an in-depth overview of current developments of technology-based art. It will take place from 15th to 21st November 2012. In this framework, a specific programme is dedicated to the exploration of the city of Dresden through Augmented Reality.

Various virtual projects will make the city become a sensitive experience, between physical and virtual world, through the cost free LAYAR-app.

It is a cooperation between computer scientists and media designers from TU Dresden. Artists and TU students works in tandems on different approaches of border-crossing use of Augmented Reality technology. Throughout collaborative work they question social and artistic potential of it.

http://t-m-a.de/cynetart/f2012/cynetart-arpop-up-city?lang=en

UAR | Urban Augmented reality

This architecture application has been developed by the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI). It provides information about the build environment, through texts, images, archives. By means of advanced 3D models, UAR shows the user what is not there: The city as it once was – for instance by showing buildings that once stood there. The city as it might have been – by showing scale models and design drawings of alternative designs that were never implemented. And the city of the future – by showing artist’s impressions of buildings under construction or in the planning stage.

UAR was originally created to make the NAI collections available. It has now become a broad mobile platform for architecture and urban design, in which numerous parties cooperate: architecture centres, firms of architects, art institutions, municipal archives, museums, local authorities and market parties.

UAR is available in 8 cities in The Netherlands includingRotterdamandAmsterdamand is still growing. Since the beginning of 2011 there is an English-language version, and users can add objects themselves, such as their own home or other unusual buildings. The application is free and collaborative: users add content and thereby contribute to the expansion of the database. Users can also correct one another.

UAR is a collaboration between NIA, Agentschap NL, the BankGiro Loterij, the VSB fund and SNS Reaal. UAR was developed in cooperation with IN10 Communicatie, Layar and DPI Animation House.

http://en.nai.nl/museum/architecture_app

Reflections and experimentations are led on future AR applications, evolving very fast. Linked Data and open data have a strong potential to enrich them, and will be an important component in future developments. However, whatever new applications may provide, it is obvious that AR technology itself is not enough to create real users’ experience: it is a tool, the content has priority.

See also the experimentations led by Dedale, in the framework of the Smart City Living Lab, on digital urban services for mediation, heritage and tourism applications: http://www.smartcity.fr

India is the largest repository of manuscripts, and digital preservation is felt as a matter of utmost importance

India for digital preservation

from our Referent dr. Ramesh C. Gaur

DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, in July dedicated a special issue about Digital Preservation: Vol. 32, No. 4, July 2012

The Journal endeavours to bring recent developments in information technology, as applicable to library and information science, to the notice of librarians, documentation and information professionals, students and others interested in the field. It is published bi-monthly. The articles published in the Journal are covered in Scopus, LISA, LISTA, EBSCO Abstracts/Full-text,Library Literature and Information Science Index/Full-text, The Informed Librarian Online, DOAJ, OpenJ-Gate, Indian Science Abstracts, Indian Citation Index, Full text Sources Online, WorldCat, and OCLC.

The issue about Digital Preservation is available here:

http://www.publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/index.php/djlit/issue/view/115

Download the full editorial article by dr. Gaur (PDF, 439 Kb)

Abstract:

India is a country of vast cultural heritage resources both tangible and intangible. With an estimated 5 million ancient manuscripts, India is the largest repository of manuscripts. Besides, a large amount of other cultural resources are available in various archives and museums in India. The preservation of these resources was never a priority subject, so large resources have either vanished or have gone out of India. An approach on preservation of its physical resources was never discussed. In similar way, the concepts of digital preservation have been introduced in India very lately, i.e., sometime in year 2008 only.

Digital preservation is a process of preserving both digitised and born-digital contents to a distant future in reusable condition for access by its users. It involves a set of systematic guidelines, processes, strategies, technology and approaches. The technological obsolescence, shorter and uncertain life-period for current storage media, information glut, and Internet revolution are some of the major factors which have made preservation of digital information more complex and challenging.

My introduction to digital preservation started in 2005 when I visited Germany with the support of Max Mueller Bhawan. My three-week stay, one week each at Belfield University, Belfield; German National Library, Frankfurt; and State Gottingen University Library, Gottingen; provided me opportunity to closely study some of the digital preservation initiatives in Germany in particular and in Europe in general. The interaction with researchers working at project like NESTOR, KOPOL, and REUSE, etc., helped me in learning the basics of digital preservation. After coming back from Germany, I shared my experience in the form of various lectures delivered at various national and international conferences in India. Since then, digital preservation is prime area of my interest.

National Digital Preservation Programme (NDPP) of India http://www.ndpp.in/ was launched by Ministry of Communications & Information Technology in 2008. Dr Dinesh Katre from C-DAC, Pune was named as one of the coordinators of the project. The first major step by the NDPP was in the form of Indo-US workshop (http://www.ndpp.in/index.php/events/indo-us-workshop.html), which was organised in March, 2009 at Pune. The Indo-US workshop was attended by over 25 professionals from USA, Europe, and India. The next major achievement came in March, 2010 with organisation of Expert Group National Meet by C-DAC, Pune. In this meeting position papers from 26 different sectors were presented. On the basis of these presentations, a detailed proposal was submitted by C-DAC, Pune and as a result of which, a project entitled, ‘Centre for Excellence in Digital Preservation’ with 4 pilot projects were approved in April 2011.

Development of digital repository of cultural heritage at Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) is one of the projects of these pilot projects. On the invitation of UNESCO-IFAP and Russian Federation, I went to attend the International Conference ‘Preservation of Digital Information in the Information Society’ held in Moscow during 3-5 October 2011. There, I also presented a paper ‘Development of Digital Repository on Indian Cultural Heritage: A Collaborate Project under the National Digital Preservation Programme (NDPP) of India’. I was also invited to submit as External Partner the proposal to contribute in Digital Cultural Heritage – Roadmap for Preservation (DCH-RP) that has been submitted to the European Commission as part of the FP7 Capacities Programme – Research Infrastructures Theme – Topic INFRA-2012-3.3: Coordination actions, conferences and studies supporting policy development, including international cooperation, for e-infrastructures.

My active participation in all above events and projects has helped in further understanding of the subject.

There was very good response for special issue of DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology on digital preservation. Among all proposals, 6 papers have been selected for this issue. Out of 6 papers, there are 3 papers from outside India, i.e., one each from Germany, South Africa and South America.

Dr. Gaur and dr. Tripathi also contributed to the journal with an article “Digital Preservation of Electronic Resources”.

Download the full article (PDF, 439 Kb)

Abstract:

Due to huge advances in information communication technologies (ICTs), there has been an astronomical growth of e-resources—e-journals, e-books, online databases and so on; libraries spend phenomenally on acquisition of these e- resources as these are very popularly used by the students and researchers. Unfortunately, this growth is accompanied by many threats. Digital content (of the e- resources) is fragile and not durable. Its accessibility and use by future generations depends on technology which very rapidly evolves and changes. Hence, ensuring access of e-resources for future generation of users is a big challenge for libraries. The present paper highlights various problems of digital content and elaborates how digital preservation is more demanding and challenging than preserving print copies of journals. It also gives a bird’s eye view of various projects initiated for archiving digital content of scholarly journals.

For further information:

DESIDOC website: http://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/index.php/djlit/index

JNU Jawaharlal Nehru University website: http://www.jnu.ac.in/

report from EuroMed 2012 conference by EGI

The 4th Euro-Mediterranean conference on Digital Cultural Heritage

by Steve Brewer, EGI

EuroMed 2012 brought together researchers from many countries across Europe and beyond in the historical city of Limassol, Cyprus to present hundreds of papers on the rapidly expanding field of Digital Cultural Heritage (DCH). Presentations covered a wide spectrum of activity from 4D historical recreations of Hamburg during significant periods in its history superimposed onto Google Earth, to ARCHES, a geospatial catalogue of immovable artifacts, to various mathematical and chemical models of fire damage and corrosion and their adverse effects on cultural artifacts. Traditionally, much of the research into DCH has been undertaken by individuals or small teams in universities and museums, or memory institutions as they are now often called, reflecting their underlying purpose as custodians of our irreplaceable collective memory. However, increasingly researchers are turning to their colleagues in engineering and science departments to enable them to dig deeper into our understanding of the processes involved in understanding preservation and curation.

In order to further support this need for technological support and wider collaboration, the DCH specialists were joined in Limmasol by representatives from the European Grid Infrastructure, the EU-DAT project and SCIDIP-ES project as well as the recently started DCH-RP project in which EGI.eu is a partner. The driver for this sharing of services and requirements came from the European Commission and was supported by representatives from various Directorates that span these areas.

Read the full article on the EGI blog.