Digital meets Culture

the collaboration with SC BALI on behalf of Ukrainian libraries will enrich EuropeanaPhotography and Europeana digital holdings

Europeana Photography new partner from Kiev

EuropeanaPhotography consortium is happy and proud to announce that the group is growing! It was just signed an agreement for the provision of amazing new content with a new content provider from Ukraine.

So welcome to company SC BALI and to Ms. Olga Barkova and her colleagues.

SC BALI is a company based in Kiev that already has experience with EU projects; the general activity is the international business and one of the directions is ICT in the cultural, science and education sectors, including the distribution and developing of software.

Ms. Olga Barkova in her studio

SC BALI has been an official contributor of the Linked Heritage Project and already has got experience in delivering content to Europeana. For EuropeanaPhotography, it will be a collector for photographic collections belonging to Ukrainian libraries and archives, helping them with metadata preparation and content providing.

The technicians of SC BALI are already at work testing the EuropeanaPhotography MINT tool to provide a first batch of photographs. Thanks to this collaboration, Ukrainian and Russian languages will also be added to the EuropeanaPhotography Vocabulary!

And, at the end of November, SC BALI is organizing a very interesting workshop in Kiev, also focused on EuropeanaPhotography.

Kiev (Ukraine), 25-26 November 2013

Preservation and use of digital collections of photographic documents

First International Scientific and Practical Seminar

DIGITIZED HERITAGE: PRESERVATION, ACCESS, REPRESENTATION

Preservation and use of digital collections of photographic documents

November 25-26, 2013

State Polytechnic Museum (NTUU “KPI”) held a scientific and practical seminar, the first in a series of informational and training events on the subject of digitizing of historical, cultural and scientific heritage stored in archives, museums, libraries and private collections.

The objective was to familiarize professionals with advanced international practices, digitizing technologies, development and integration of digital collections, access and use methods. The event was composed of lectures, presentations, trainings, workshops, and professional meetings to foster discussions and find appropriate technological solutions.

Moderators and speakers were highly experienced local and foreign experts on digitizing and related areas of information and communication technologies: heads of archives, museums, libraries, publishers, owners of private collections, scientists, and a notable audience of about 140 participants.

Speakers:

Nataliia Pysarevska, Director of State Polytechnic Museum (NTUU “KPI”), Museology expert (Kiev, Ukraine)

Andrea de Polo, BFA, holds a Museum Studies Certificate from George Eastman House Museum. Project manager for R&D projects at Fratelli Alinari Photo Archive. Independent consultant to museums and the cultural heritage sector specializing in digital strategy for institutions of all sizes. Expert in strategic planning, business sourcing and procurement, budgeting and forecasting, DRMS, electronic publishing, online digital resources and publications, open access policies and issues. (Florence, Italy)

Hilary Roberts, Head Curator of photography at Imperial War Museum Photograph Archive, archivist, specialist in the history of war photography, expert consultant to curators, archivists and librarians on matters pertaining to photography around the world. (London, United Kingdom)

Olga Barkova, PhD, Deputy director on IT development at BALI Specialized Center, Deputy head of Technical Committee TK-144 “Information and Documentation”, expert in digital libraries and collections, digitizing technologies (Kiev, Ukraine)

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Seminar program:

Presentations:

State Polytechnic Museum: the collection of photographs (Natalia Pisarevskaya),
The Fratelli Alinari Photo Archive and Museum: history, funds, activities (Andrea De Polo, presentation available here),
The Photograph Archive of the Imperial War Museum (UK): storage, digitizing, the use of film and photographs, digital designs to the anniversaries of the events (Hilary Roberts)
Ukrainian in Europeana: the initiative and the experience of connecting the Ukrainian digitized documentary heritage to EUROPEANA, the integrated European catalog (Barkova Olga)

Lecture:

Digitizing of photographic documents: best practice of safety and access (Andrea De Polo)
Software technologies for the integration of digitized photocontent into digital collections and electronic encyclopedic resources (Olga Barkova)

Master class:

Digitizing of photographic documents: the organization of the process, licensing and protection of digital content (Andrea De Polo)
Preparing of the content for Europeana: requirements to the digital copies of the photographic documents, metadata (format LIDO) (Olga Barkova, Andrea de Polo)

Professional meeting – Cooperation with EuropeanaPhotography

The Perspectives of Ukrainian organizations participation in the EU programs
Commercial use of the photographic documents: the experience and proposals of Societа Fratelli Alinari IDEA S.p.A.
The possibility of cooperation with European partners, projects and various forms of public access to public, licensed and private digitized photocontent.

Working languages: Ukrainian, Russian, English.

Location: Kyiv, 37 Peremohy ave. 37, Building 6

State Polytechnic museum NTUU “KPI”

Administrative Council Hall (1 floor)

Map: http://museum.kpi.ua/location/

Schedule

November 25
9:30	Registration
10:00-17:00	Presentations, lectures session, master class
11:00, 15:30	Coffee break
13:00-14:00	Lunch break

November 26
10:00-15:30	Professional meeting
11:30	Coffee break
	Excursion at the museum

Details for participation in the official announce (PDF, 270 Kb)

Training workshop about epigraphy, project's progress and planning the future activities

EAGLE plenary meeting in Pisa

On the 24th and 25th October 2013, in Pisa, it was held the second plenary meeting of EAGLE project, that was joined with a training workshop for the partners.

Actually, the training workshop was held on day 1, and after the welcome by Vittore Casarosa of CNR-ISTI, the hosting partner, it started with a very interesting introduction to epigraphy for non-epigraphers by the project coordinator Silvia Orlandi, Sapienza University of Rome.

The presentation was very useful to those non-specialist partners that learned the main concepts of epigraphy; during the presentation it was also mentioned an interesting paper by prof. Panciera: “What Is An Inscription? Problems Of Definition And Identity Of An Historical Source.”.

The rest of the workshop was focused on resources, metadata and harvesting protocols, the EAGLE metadata model & schema (presentation by Eydel Rivero Ruíz, University of Alcalà), and a wide training about the mapping process to allow ingestion of the metadata to Europeana, by Andrea Mannocci, CNR-ISTI.

Also requirements for the mobile application, to be presented on day 2, were tackled.

On Friday 25th, Philippe Martineau of EUREVA opened the session presenting the EAGLE Mobile Application, designed for enabling tourists to understand inscriptions they find on location by scanning them with a smartphone.

Then, the plenary meeting started with discussions by all the WP leaders about project progress and objectives for the next period. Particularly useful for the partners were the summary of the training workshop and planning of the ingestion phase, by Valentina Vassallo, The Cyprus Institute, the discussion on networking methodologies and next steps in the Working Groups by Pietro Liuzzo, University of Heidelberg, Christian Uhlir and Andreas Sanders, Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg and the discussion about the requirements for the implementation of the end-user dedicated services, among which the storytelling application, by Francesco Mambrini, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.

Raffaella Santucci, Sapienza University of Rome, the Dissemination Leader, presented the challenges and future strategie for the dissemination and outreach of the project in collaboration with all the partners.

During the session, a wide presentation of the EAGLE website and the EAGLE showcase hosted by digitalmeetsculture was also delivered by our technical director, and technical coordinator of the project, Claudio Prandoni.

Next appointment for the EAGLE project will be on the 19-20 February 2014, in Ljubljana, with the first EAGLE workshop “Current Practices and New Directions in Digital Epigraphy“. Still to be confirmed as for dates and venues, the first EAGLE International Conference will also take place in early autumn 2014.

Marseille, 28 October - 1 November 2013

Digital heritage international congress 2013

Over 13 Conferences, Symposia, Workshops and Exhibitions under one roof

In the 2013 European Capital of Culture, Marseille, this fall will have place the world’s largest gathering ever focused on Digital Heritage. A federated event of the leading scientific meetings in information technology for heritage, the Congress will for the first time bring: VSMM, Eurographics GCH, UNESCO’s Memory of the World, Arquaeologica2.0, Archeovirtual, Digital Art Week and special events from CAA, CIPA, Space2Place, ICOMOS IPCH, and multiple others together in one venue with a prestigious joint proceedings.

A ground-breaking public display of cutting edge digital heritage projects will grace the conference venue at the new museum complex on the Marseille waterfront. Organized by CNRS-MAP, in collaboration with other local research organisms (Aix-Marseille University, Arts et Métiers ParisTech, CICRP, INRIA), the venue will be Marseille’s architecturally stunning new waterfront museums, MuCEM and La Villa Mediterranée.

The Congress covers heritage in all its forms, focusing around 5 heritage themes:

Built Heritage (sites to cities, towns and cultural landscapes, ie World Heritage)
Culture & Traditions (folklife to languages, song, dance, craft… ie Intangible Heritage),
Museums & Collections (movable objects and their museums, ie Movable Heritage)
Libraries & Archives (books to maps, manuscripts, …, ie Documentary Heritage)
Art & Creativity (digital / new media art to creative digital and online culture)

The Congress’ International Scientific Committee is seeking for:

Technical & Application Papers
Posters & Short Works
Panel, Workshop & Tutorial Proposals
Videos for a public screening
Functional Exhibits for a public exhibition of digital heritage works

Download the Call for Participation (PDF, 994 Kb)

For further information please visit the official website: http://www.digitalheritage2013.org/

dissemination at Digital Heritage 2013 big event

Europeana Photography in Marseille

Sofie Taes of KU Leuven gave a presentation of EuropeanaPhotography during the panel session of EU projects at Digital Heritage 2013.

The workshop took place on the 29th October and included representatives of several EU projects, who delivered interesting speeches.

It was an occasion to discuss and present the project to colleagues, experts and professionals in the cultural heritage, to foster reciprocal awareness and cooperation.

Download the presentation (PDF, 3.82 Mb)

The e-Culture Science Gateway developed within DCH-RP project is now empowered with a new tool

Parallel Semantic Search Across Multiple Repositories

Thanks to the collaboration between DCH-RP and CHAIN-REDS projects, a Parallel Semantic Search Engine has been integrated in the e-Culture Science Gateway.

This is a standard-based web 2.0 demonstrative platform that enables search in parallel in different online repositories of linked data. The users now can search across the tens of millions of resources contained in the CHAIN-REDS Knowledge Base as well as in the Europeana, Cultura Italia and Isidore repositories.

Data accessible through the eCSG are stored on the European Grid Infrastructure and are accessible through the pan-European GEANT network and the National Research & Education Networks. The service is available both in a web-based version and with a mobile app.

The eCSG was developed to show the Proofs of Concepts (PoCs) identified by the DCH-RP project and how they fit with the requirements defined in the Roadmap.

Please access here the Semantic Search service: http://ecsg.dch-rp.eu/semantic-search

Kigali, Rwanda, 13 November 2013

An African e-Infrastructure for Virtual Research Communities and their Applications

A joint CHAIN-REDS and eI4Africa Workshop was organised under the aegis of the European Commission and in co-location with big event UbuntuNet Connect 2013.

The CHAIN-REDS and eI4Africa EU/FP7 projects have a common interest in promoting the adoption of consolidated standards, both in the e-Infrastructure and certification authorities and Federated Identity services domains, with the ultimate aim of widening the number of potential users of e-Infrastructures in Africa.

CHAIN-REDS aims at promoting and supporting technological and scientific collaboration across different e-Infrastructures established and operated in various continents, in order to define a path towards a global e-Infrastructure ecosystem.

eI4Africa aims at boosting the Research, Technological Development and Innovation (RTDI) potential of African e-Infrastructures and to support policy dialogues and Euro-African cooperation in the framework of the joint Africa-EU Strategic Partnership on ‘trade, regional integration and infrastructures’ (JAES Partnership 3) as well as the Joint Africa-EU Strategic Partnership on ‘science, information society and space’ (JAES Partnership 8).

In the light of this common interest, the two projects in partnerships organised a highly interactive joint event to present a set of activities implemented to date, including the deployment of Science Gateways and federated services (Certification Authorities and Identity Providers), a Knowledge Database, an e-Infrastructure application survey, as well as a large number of live demos in life science, healthcare and environmental sectors, among others.

The main objectives of this workshop were to:

Enhance collaboration among African and European scientists
Raise awareness of the regional research and education networks and their potential
Propose alternative means of conducting research and delivering services
Demonstrate the relevance of e-Infrastructures and advanced networks
Provide a forum for discussions and debates on recent developments and perspectives in the field.

During the workshop, representatives from INFN, Italian National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics in Italy, presented some applications integrated in the Africa Grid Science Gateway, which has been built with the same framework used for the eCulture Science Gateway, that is also in use in the EU project about e-infrastructures DCH-RP.

One of the applications that were showcased is the “De Roberto Digital Repository”, which was presented as an example of repository for digital cultural heritage.

This thematic workshop took place on November 13, 2013, in Kigali, co-located with the UbuntuNet-Connect 2013 (Nov. 14-15, 2013) and it was organised by KIST and the UbuntuNet Alliance with the support of Sigma Orionis and all eI4Africa and CHAIN-REDS project partners.

Vilnius hosted worlwide experts

Open e-IRG Workshop to discuss Infrastructures and e-Infrastructures

The e-IRG Workshop under the Lithuanian EU Presidency of the European Union was held in Vilnius, Lithuania from Monday 4 November till Tuesday 5 November.

The main topics of discussions during this workshop were: “Infrastructures in the Digital Age: the Data Challenge” and “e-Infrastructure commons“.

The venue was the old Vilnius University campus, Universiteto 3.

The main themes of the workshop were discussed in two tracks: “Implementation of the e-Infrastructure commons” and “Infrastructures in the Digital Age: the Data Challenge”.

The workshop included speeches by very important and international experts such as Sverker Holmgren (e-IRG Chair), Arjen van Rijn, Bob Jones, Antonella Fresa (for DCH-RP; presentation), Kostas Glinos (introducing Horizon2020), Alf Game, Bjorn Henrichsen, Damien Lecarpentier (for EUDAT), Herman Stehouwer (RDA) and others.

Images and videoes of the meeting will be published soon.

Download the presentation “Digital Cultural Heritage moving toward an e-Infrastructure based approach to digital preservation” by A. Fresa here

A workshop “Undisclosed Treasures from the Photo-archives” is also organized, in the framework of EuropeanaPhotography project

NALIS celebrates the 125th anniversary of the Sofia University

NALIS National Academic Library and Information System is an organization based in Sofia, Bulgaria, co-founded by three major public academic units – Sofia University (the main university of Bulgaria), the American University in Bulgaria and the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of sciences. Executive director is dr. Dincho Krastev.

It was created to provide valuable answers to the challenges the librarianship is facing in Bulgaria, such as developing collaboration between academic libraries, balancing the cost of scientific publications and of specialized online sources of information with the unavoidable financial restrictions that are imposed to public funding; fostering a true involvement of Bulgaria and its cultural institutions in digitization processes and in the rapid deployment of digital libraries in Europe and the world.

Currently, NALIS is one of the partners of EuropeanaPhotography project, acting mainly as the coordinator for the digitization of photo collections of major cultural heritage institusion such as the National Archives, the Museum of Sofia, the National Archeological museum, and others.

This year, the General Meeting of the NALIS Foundation is joined to the celebrations of the 125^th anniversary of the Sofia University, and includes an important workshop: “Undisclosed Treasures from the Photo-archives, a Workshop in the framework of EuropeanaPhotography”.

Following the workshop there was the official opening of an exhibition: “Treasures among the Donations to Library “Theology” of the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.

Invitation card reproducing an historical photograph dated 1887: “The members of the first bicycle team in Tarnovo”, State Agency “Archives”, Bulgaria.

The event was also very much emotional, as there was a student occupation of the central University building going on, and the venue was changed last minute.

It was opened by a welcome speech by Dr. Evgeni Dimitrov and an introduction to NALIS “The NALIS Foundation – New Technological Solutions” by Dr. Dincho Krastev (Executive Director of NALIS Foundation) and Sabina Aneva (Deputy Executive Director of NALIS Foundation).

Evgeni Dimitrov, a NALIS system administrator and coordinator of EuriopeanaPhotography for Bulgaria; Dincho Krastev, the NALIS Executive Director, and Sabina Aneva, the NALIS Deputy Executive Director. (Photo courtesy of NALIS)

The workshop was very interesting, and the speakers were very enthusiastic to have the rare opportunity to speak about old photographs in front of an audience of professionals and librarians, who are interested in the topic themselves and have the access to photographic collections in their libraries.

The presentations, available in Bulgarian language on the NALIS’ website; included:

Katja Zographova, Director of the National Museum of Literature: Svetoslava Slavejkova – the Keeper of Slavejkov Family’s Cultural Memory and the Founder of the Museum

Rumjana Pencheva, Head of Holdings and Literary Heritage Department at the National Museum of Literature: Boris Rumenov Known Best as Borjo Zevzeka (1884-1944). She also discussed another presentation: Writers as Kids.

Katerina Gadzheva, Chief Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art Studies of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: State, Problems and Specifics of the Photographic Archives and Private Collections in Bulgaria

Petko Georgiev, Special Collections Department at the Ivan Vazov Public Library in Plovdiv: Real Images – Unreal Europe

After the workshop, there was the formal opening of the exhibition “Treasures among the Donations to Library “Theology” of the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, followed by a cocktail party, celebrating the 125^th anniversary of the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, given by the Director of the University Library Dr. Anna Angelova.

Other pictures of the event are available on the dedicated page on NALIS’ website.

There was a notable press coverage of the workshop on the internet and in a daily newspaper (Dnevnik) including:

NALIS website: http://www.nalis.bg

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EAGLE workshop in Ljubljana, 19-20 February 2014

Current Practices and New Directions in Digital Epigraphy

Current Practices and New Directions in Digital Epigraphy is the first of a series of international events planned by EAGLE project. The event featured presentations and hands-on workshops led by the project’s Working Groups.

The workshop, which took place in Ljubljana on 19-20 February 2014, was organised by EAGLE partner Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute of Archaeology (Slovenia), in collaboration with Heidelberg University (Germany) and Sapienza, University of Rome (Italy).

The event was aimed at anyone interested in epigraphy (digital or non-digital) as well as to the establishment and diffusion of general best current practices for digital editions. It covered many aspects of digital technology applied to inscriptions, from content to management and networking.

The event hosted the following 3 workshops:

W1: Harmonization and interoperability of Inscriptions (Eagle Working Group on GIS and Terminologies):

The Eagle metadata model and its entities
Europeana Data Model
EpiDoc as interoperability format
Wikiand geographical information
Vocabularies and Terminologies

W2: Translations of Inscriptions (Eagle Working Group on Translations and content curation):

WikiData as best practice for translations of inscriptions.
An Edit-a-thon of translations of Latin texts on the Eagle MediaWiki

W3: Intellectual Property Rights (Eagle Working Group on IPR and user engagement):

overview on licensing practices and policies in Europe
how to deal with IPR
how to properly label unlabeled digital items as photographs

Moreover, the event hosted a photographic workshop on shooting high quality images for online publication and research.

Contacts:

Marjeta Šašel Kos: mkos@zrc-sazu.si.
Pietro Liuzzo: pietro.liuzzo@zaw.uni-heidelberg.de

For more information visit the event page in the EAGLE website.

EAGLE, The Europeana network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy is a best-practice network, co-funded by the European Commission under its Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme. EAGLE will provide a massive resource for both the curious and the scholarly by the provision of a single user-friendly portal to the inscriptions of the Ancient World.

Below, some photos taken at Ljubljana by Andrej Šemrov and Matija Pavlovec.

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