Digital meets Culture

Rome, 25 November 2016

Smart Specialisation and Cultural Heritage: an engine for innovation and growth

The PREFORMA project has been invited by the Smart Specialisation Platform of the European Commission to present the main results and the main lessons learned so far at their next S3 event on Smart Specialisation and Cultural Heritage that will be held in Rome on 25 November 2016. The main objective is to present effective ways to manage pre-commercial public procurement in the field of Cultural Heritage.

This S3 workshop, co-organised by the S3 Platform, LazioInnova (the regional Innovation Agency of Region Lazio) and Regional Government of Lazio, will focus on Innovation policy and Cultural Heritage as a key element to promote socio-economic development and will discuss it how to reach its full potential.

The workshop aims at supporting policy makers in the implementation of their Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), with a focus on Cultural Heritage, to further integrate the smart specialisation community with a larger set of actors and institutions and finally, to discuss how to operationalise the alignment with complementary policies, exploiting synergies and finding more effective ways of working.

The workshop will have a mix of plenaries and parallel working groups.

The plenaries in the morning are intended to set the scene, to introduce what regional government and agencies (Lazio, Andalusia, Centre- Val de Loire and Norte) are doing in the scope of their RIS3s to address challenges and opportunities of cultural heritage and to present cases of innovation in the field of cultural heritage not directly related to smart specialisation but with possible links to be explored.

For more information please visit http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/-/smart-specialisation-and-cultural-heritage-an-engine-for-innovation-and-growth?inheritRedirect=true.

A new PCP project to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term

PREFORMA takes flight

On January 13th and 14th 2014, the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova hosted the PREFORMA Kick-off Meeting.

PREFORMA aims to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term. The main objective is to give memory institutions full control of the process of the conformity tests of files to be ingested into archives.

PREFORMA – PREservation FORMAts for culture information/e-archives – is Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project co-funded by the European Commission, under its FP7-ICT Programme.

The consortium of PREFORMA is composed by 14 partners, from 9 European countries, ranging from the North to the South of the EU. Its good geographic spread is also complemented by a good scientific and technical spread of competences and expertise.

The Swedish National Archives is the coordinator of the project and leads the CSA-Sustainable Network WP. Promoter Srl is the Technical and Communication Coordinator, while the University of Padova is the Scientific Coordinator.

Project website: www.preforma-project.eu

Berlin, 15-16 May 2017

PDF Days Europe 2017

After the success of the 2016 edition, the PDF Days Europe 2017 will be held in Berlin again, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to learn about the applications and benefits of PDF, PDF/A, PDF/UA and more.

Across two days, you’ll be able to choose from German- and English- language presentations, user reports and workshops in order to assemble your own personal package of PDF knowledge.

Highlights of the 2017 edition include:

The future of PDF: PDF 2.0 and new initiatives
PDF/A: Archiving solutions
ZUGFeRD: E-invoicing solutions based on PDF/A
PDF/UA: Solutions for accessible documents
PDF/VT: Solutions for personalised printing
PDF/X: Pre-press solutions

Highlights from the 2016 edition

Over 150 attendees came to Berlin for the two-day conference more than ever before. With over 50 presentations, the conference programme covered all PDF standards, giving visitors plenty of opportunity to learn about the applications and benefits of PDF, PDF/A, PDF/UA and more. The key message throughout the event was that the PDF format has become a critical component of every business, forming the fundamental basis of a wide range of business processes. This was underscored by the user presentations, the specialist talks from experts from around the world, and the podium discussions at the event.

For further information visit https://www.pdfa.org/pdf-days-europe-sees-record-number-of-attendees/.

Slide decks and video recordings of the PDF Days Europe 2016 are available at https://www.pdfa.org/slide-decks-and-video-recordings-of-the-pdf-days-europe-2016/.

About the PDF Association

First established as the PDF/A Competence Center in 2006, today, the PDF Association is an international organization promoting awareness and adoption of open standards in digital document applications using PDF technology.

The association facilitates education, networking and communication, and the sharing of expertise and experience with interested parties worldwide. The current membership includes over 100 enterprises and numerous individual subject-matter experts from more than 20 countries.

The management board includes industry leaders from Adlib Information Systems Inc., Adobe Systems Inc., callas software GmbH, Datalogics Inc., DocuSign Inc., intarsys consulting GmbH, levigo solutions GmbH, LuraTech Europe GmbH, Nitro Software Inc. and Satz-Rechen-Zentrum (SRZ). The associations chairman is Olaf Drümmer, CEO of callas software GmbH. Peter Duff, President and CEO of Adlib Software, is the associations vice-chairman.

Riga, 15-18 May 2017

Archiving Conference 2017

Since the first meeting in 2004, Archiving has continued to offer a unique opportunity for imaging scientists and those working in the cultural heritage community (curators, archivists, librarians, etc.), as well as in government, industry, and academia, to come together to discuss the most pressing issues related to the digital preservation and stewardship of hardcopy, audio, and video.

The conference presents the latest research results on digitization and curation, provides a forum to explore new strategies and policies, and reports on successful projects that can serve as benchmarks in the field.

Archiving 2017 is a blend of short courses, invited focal papers, keynote talks, and peer-reviewed oral and interactive display presentations, offering attendees a unique opportunity for gaining and exchanging knowledge and building networks among professionals.

PREFORMA has been contacted to organise a series of courses on preservation formats and assessment of file formats. These courses, which are short workshop-like sessions with a mix of theory and practical hands-on exercises, will be organised on May 15, 2017.

For more information visit the Conference website.

Amsterdam, 28-30 May 2017

The Reel Thing

Curated by Grover Crisp and Michael Friend, The Reel Thing addresses current thinking and most advanced practical examples of progress in the field of preservation, restoration and media conservation.

A special 40th edition of the ongoing technical symposium will take place in Amsterdam over the course of three days, May 28 – 30, 2017, in conjunction with the EYE International Conference 2017.

The event, organised in cooperation with with EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam and the Association of Moving Image Archivists, will be composed of a three-day exploration of technologies for preservation and restoration, including an opening night reception and screenings of restored films.

As with all editions of The Reel Thing, this special edition will focus on the wide range of critical issues facing archivists, technicians, asset managers and curators of image and sound in the current media/digital landscape. Problems and solutions involving digital creation workflows (2K/4K/6K/8K), data storage access and recovery, image scanning and recording, image resolution metrics, traditional video and audio preservation and restoration issues are topics of interest. Of particular interest are the preservation and archiving issues surrounding Digital Intermediate and Digital Production workflows for motion pictures and television/streaming.

For further information please visit the Conference website.

Montreal, Canada, 8-11 August, 2017

Digital Humanities 2017

Co-organised by McGill University and the Université de Montréal, DH2017 will take place August 8-11, 2017 in downtown Montréal, Canada on the campus of McGill University. This is the premiere annual conference of the international Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). The theme of DH2017 is “Access/Accès”.

About ADHO

The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) is an umbrella organisation whose goals are to promote and support digital research and teaching across arts and humanities disciplines, drawing together humanists engaged in digital and computer-assisted research, teaching, creation, dissemination, and beyond, in all areas reflected by its diverse membership. ADHO supports initiatives for publication, presentation, collaboration, and training; recognises and supports excellence in these endeavours; and acts as an community-based consultative and advisory force. In doing so, ADHO embraces and coordinates activity across its constituent organisations: the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH, founded in 1973 as the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing), the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH, founded in 1978), the Canadian Society for Digital Humanities / Société canadienne des humanités numériques (CSDH/SCHN, founded in 1986 as the Consortium for Computers in the Humanities / Consortium pour ordinateurs en sciences humaines), centerNet, the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH), and the Japanese Association for Digital Humanites (JADH).

Members in ADHO societies are those at the forefront of areas such as textual analysis, electronic publication, document encoding, textual studies and theory, new media studies and multimedia, digital libraries, applied augmented reality, interactive gaming, and beyond. We are researchers and lecturers in humanities computing and in academic departments such as English, History, French, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Theatre, Music, Computer Science, and Visual Arts. We are resource specialists working in libraries, archival centres, and with humanities computing groups. We are academic administrators, and members of the private and public sectors. We are independent scholars, students, graduate students, and research assistants. We are from countries in every hemisphere.

Wrocław, 19-25 August 2017

WLIC 2017 IFLA World Library and Information Congress

The IFLA World Library and Information Congress is the international flagship professional and trade event for the library and information services sector.

It brings together over 3,500 participants from more than 120 countries, sets the international agenda for the profession and offers opportunities for networking and professional development to all delegates.

The 83rd World Library and Information Congress will take place in Wrocław, Poland, from 19-25 August 2017.

“Libraries. Solidarity. Society.“ A straightforward yet powerful message that resonates with a singular truth in a country where the most powerful union movement of the past century was born and went on to change the face of history. A message from a robust library community that managed not only to survive the challenges of the transformation, but excelled and flourished in the new social and political reality. And now the network of our country‘s information providers is ready to bring you the most exciting and exceptional congress experience.

Special attention will be posed to the long-term preservation of digitised and born digital materials, which poses many challenges for heritage professionals globally, spanning from policy requirements to constantly changing technology infrastructures. Considering both, digitised and born digital materials, IFLA 2017 will explore practical examples of how institutions respond to these challenges. The Conference will highlight challenges and critical aspects, and identify case studies which provide solutions to ensure our digital heritage will survive for future generations and we avoid digital amnesia.

For further information visit the Conference website.

An article presenting DCH-RP appeared in the December 2013 edition of the SCAPE Newsletter

DCH-RP features in SCAPE Newsletter

The SCAPE project – Scalable Preservation Environments – just released the December 2013 edition of their newsletter.

DCH-RP features in this newsletter with an article presenting the project, its main objectives and the first outcomes.

The other topics included in the newsletter are:

The results of the last SCAPE Training Events
The description of some of the tools under development: Scout and ToMaR
An interview with Zeynep PEHLIVAN from University Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC)
The programme of the next SCAPE Demonstrations
The outcomes of the SCAPE Developers Workshop
The upcoming events

Click here to view the newsletter online.

Berlin, 30 August - 1 September 2017

Digital Cultural Heritage 2017

The DCH2017 International Conference will take place in Berlin, at the National Library, on August 30 – September 01, 2017.

The conference is organized by CODATA-Germany, the German National Committee for CODATA, Committee on Data for Science and Technology of the International Council for Science (ICSU), in cooperation with:

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kartographie
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Map Department
DHN, Digital Heritage in the Nordic Countries
UNGEGN, United Nations Group of Experts on Geographic Names
Associazione per L’Informatica Umanistica e La Cultura Digitale
Forschungszentrum Deutscher Sprachatlas
UiO, Universitetet i Oslo
VUGTK, Czech Research Institute of Geodesy, Topography and Cartography
Digital meets Culture, Portal on Digital Cultural heritage
TOPOI, Excellence Cluster on the Formation and Transformation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations

Erik Buelinckx from the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), one of the memory institutions participating as procurers in the PREFORMA project, will deliver a presentation on Friday 1 September entitled “A small archive with a big collection! Now what? PREFORMA’s open source digital preservation tools on the rescue”.

The conference is open for contributions that cover technical challenges as well as strategic guidance. Key messages relating to the impact of new technologies and processes on cultural heritage are especially welcome.

Special aims of this 2017 edition are:

raise awareness in Society, Science, and Technology fields about importance of the cultural dimensions and the growing potential of Digital Cultural Heritage
promote innovative content analysis from cross-organizational interoperability of digital humanities databases and XML methods, techniques, and approaches
indicate on the central role of spatial concepts enabling synergy for knowledge generation from massive granular digital cultural heritage content
create innovative cross-disciplines / cross sectors partnerships facilitate intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogue
elaborate roles and interest of information society

Berlin, 17-22 September 2017

IASA 2017 Annual Conference

The International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) was established in 1969 in Amsterdam to function as a medium for international co-operation between archives that preserve recorded sound and audiovisual documents.

IASA has members from 70 countries representing a broad palette of audiovisual archives and personal interests which are distinguished by their focus on particular subjects and areas, eg archives for all sorts of musical recordings, historic, literary, folkloric and ethnological sound documents, theatre productions and oral history interviews, bio-acoustics, environmental and medical sounds, linguistic and dialect recordings, as well as recordings for forensic purposes.

The International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) 48th Annual Conference will be hosted on 17-22 September 2017 by the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.

IASA invites everyone engaged in or curious about the discovery, care, preservation and dissemination of our sound and audiovisual heritage, to explore the intersection of workflows and archival formats as manifest in new ways of thinking about, new ways of preserving and new ways of presenting our objects in the digital era.

IASA 2017 Conference theme is “Integration and Innovation: Bringing Workflows and Formats Together in the Digital Era”.

Jérôme Martinez, President of MediaArea, and David Rice will provide a workshop on that covers the basics of audiovisual formats specifications, discusses the challenges in the design of an audiovisual conformance checker, and demonstrates several of MediaConch’s key features.