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This page is intended for printing purposes. Note that the internal links to references will not work correctly.
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By Concha Fernández de la Puente - October 2000
This section aims to provide news of the European Commission's initiatives in the field of digital heritage and cultural content. Its objectives are to summarise the developments in programmes, projects and activities since the last Cultivate Interactive issue and to give a clear picture of progress in the area. It certainly does not pretend to be a comprehensive account of what the EC is doing in the area but rather a short summary of some of the key items. The content is based largely on the information provided in the e-Culture Newsletter, published by the European Commission, DG Information Society, Cultural Heritage Applications Unit, that can be found on the Web [1].
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Since the last issue of Cultivate Interactive where we informed you about the latest EC's initiatives in the field of digital heritage and cultural content, there have been a number of developments and activities that you might be interested to know about.
The Cultural Heritage Applications unit, that runs RTD and content projects in the area of cultural heritage, has kept quite busy during these weeks. We evaluated the 3rd IST call, that addressed one action line of the 2000 workprogramme:III.1.4: Access to Digital Collections of Cultural and Scientific Content [2]. The area received 51 proposals and has selected 10 projects for funding for a total of 12 M euro. These projects are in negotiation at the moment. The information on them will be published soon on the digicult Web site [3].
The 4th IST call for proposals was opened on 25 July and will close on 31 October 2000. For the cultural heritage area [4] the action lines are III.1.5 Trials on new access modes to cultural and scientific content and III.1.6 Virtual representations of cultural and scientific objects.
The Commission is working now in the drafting of the IST workprogramme 2001 (WP2001) with the assistance of the IST Advisory Group (ISTAG). The role of ISTAG is to provide the Commission with independent advice concerning the content and direction of research work to be carried out under the IST Programme. ISTAG has been working on the report Recommendations of the IST Advisory Group for Workprogramme 2001 and beyond: "Implementing the vision" [5]. As for the digital heritage and cultural content area, the envisaged action lines in WP2001 are:
· Advanced digital library applications: where the focus will be visual aspects and integrating emerging new visualisation techniques into new digital library models
· Heritage for all: activities will focus on a more local or regional approach towards what is called the living record of society and the way people create and interact with their own digital culture.
A Cultural Heritage project's concertation event [6] was organised with the collaboration of the Cultural Service Centre of Austria in Vienna on 30 June 2000. This event was an opportunity for project participants to gather together and discuss current issues related to the IT research within the cultural sector.
The IST2000 Conference [7] programme is now fixed. This conference will take place in Nice from 6 to 8 December. The Cultural Heritage Applications unit is organising a session on Games and online communities that will consist of a panel discussion moderated by Marc Cavazza (University of Teeside, UK). Participants will be Nicolas Gaume (Kalisto Entertainment, France), Ryohei Nakatsu (ATR Media Integration & Communications Research Laboratories, Japan), Tony Mott (Edge Magazine, UK) and James Doornbos (Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Spain). Drawing from the fields of portal builders, virtual world creators and experts in online gaming and knowledge management, the session will examine the technical, aesthetic and social requirements for creating successful online gaming communities.
Following a call for tender [8] a study on "Technological landscapes for tomorrow's cultural economy" will be launched in short. The study will research the state of the art and future trends in the use and development of information and communication technologies for and within the cultural sector.
After 3 calls evaluated and more than 30 projects on-going or in negotiation, one of the strong clusters that unexpectedly have emerged is film heritage. Projects in this cluster are working in applying new technologies in support of access to and preservation of the European film heritage. In this sense we are also following and participating in some of the DG Education and Culture activities on cinematographic heritage. The other clusters identified are: digital libraries, cross-domains issues and knowledge distribution change.
Finally, just to mention eEurope developments in relation to our work, we have identified 17 of our new projects as contributing to eEurope objectives. This will give us courage to keep working in the same line.
Moving to activities carried out by another Commission's departments, it has been announced that Croatia is now eligible to participate in the Fifth Framework Programme for RTD, on a project by project basis, with own, not EC funds. Malta and Switzerland can participate on EC funds from January 2001, including Call 4, subject to signature of final agreements.
Women are currently under-represented in the field of scientific research. The Commission, aware of this problem, has set up a working group on "Women and science" [9] to co-ordinate action to promote women in European research. However, to achieve this, efforts will have to be made at European and Member State level. Accordingly, the Commission will encourage discussion and the sharing of experience among the Member States.
As we have already informed you, the TEN-Telecom programme [10] promotes the deployment of trans-European telecommunications services and applications in areas of common interest, by providing an aid on business plan preparation or on the initial investment phases. TEN-Telecom is now planning to open a new call for proposals [11] at the end of October that will include actions in the cultural heritage area. The objective is to create the conditions for the deployment of multimedia applications giving access to the European cultural heritage (collections and materials held in libraries, museums and audio-visual archives) and developing models allowing a fair return on investment. An Information Day [12] will be held in Brussels on 14 November.
The international conference "Managing the Digital Future of Libraries" [13] Moscow 19-20 April 2000 marked the final phase of the EU-Tacis project on the Russian State Library. One of the outcomes was the Moscow Manifesto: Russian Libraries, Museums and Archives of the Third Millenium and their role in the Global Information Society and Knowledge Society. The manifesto makes recommendations on ways in which support and cooperation can strengthen the development of digital heritage in Russia.
In this overview we have reviewed again the key EC initiatives addressing the cultural heritage area in a digital environment, focussing in the work carried out by the cultural heritage area of IST. In general, what is emerging as a focus for our future work is to help create a European cultural information landscape by encouraging cultural memory organisations to participate in R&D actions providing innovative prototype networked services for both professional users and citizens. This future information landscape should be easy to identify, easy to access, and easy to navigate and should be extended to also encompass Europe's scientific and industrial heritage.
We intend to keep you informed of new developments as they occur.
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Concha Fernández de la Puente
European Commission
DG Information Society
Cultural Heritage Applications
concha.fpuente@cec.eu.int
<http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka3/digicult/>
The information provided does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission.
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For citation purposes:
Fernández de la Puente, C. "DIGICULT Column", Cultivate Interactive, issue
2, 16 October 2000
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/digicult/>
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By Torill Redse and Jorunn Hesjedal - October 2000
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RBT / Riksbibliotektjenesten [1]
acts as the Norwegian National Node for Cultivate, and is one of
the technical partners in the project.
RBT (The National Office for Research Documentation, Academic and Special Libraries) is a government agency under the Norwegian Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs. RBT is the highest authority in the field of research documentation in Norway, and acts as a consultative, co-ordinating body serving as the government’s expert on all matters related to the activities of academic and special libraries.
As a result of the European Economic Area (EEA)-agreement, Norway has been allowed since January 1993 to participate in the European Union’s research and development programmes on equal terms with the member countries. The Norwegian Research Council appointed RBT as the Norwegian ”National Focal Point”(NFP) for The Library Research Programme in the European Union’s 3rd and 4th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. As National Focal Point, RBT is responsible for disseminating information within the country, as well as initiating and following up projects and project ideas within the library sector. The Commission initiated the creation of a European network of ”National Focal Points” for the Library Programme, and the NFPs have been closely connected during the time of the 3rd and 4th Framework Programme. RBT’s work as the Norwegian NFP has been executed in close co-operation with the Norwegian Research Council, which carried the main responsibility for information dissemination and co-ordination of the European Research Programmes in Norway.
The idea of a European Network for the Digital Cultural Heritage Community in the IST-Programme of the 5th Framework Programme was discussed at a National Focal Point meeting in Dublin early 1999. Considering the experience RBT had gained as the Norwegian National Focal Point during the 3rd and 4th Framework Programmes, it felt natural for them to join the Cultivate project as the Norwegian partner.
The networks intention is to promote and support the co-operation of all memory institutions, i.e. archives, libraries and museums. In Norway, the three sectors have so far had limited co-operation. The institutions in the archive, library and museum sector are organised under two different ministries, The Ministry of Cultural Affairs and The Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs. The responsibility is also divided between different institutions at a local level.
The academic and special libraries in higher education and research are organised under the same ministry as their parent institutions. For the majority, this is the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs. RBT is the highest authority for academic and special libraries. Public libraries are mainly municipal, and are organised under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The Directorate for Public Libraries is the highest authority for public libraries. The counties are responsible for the county libraries (fylkesbibliotek), and the government is responsible for library services to special groups, such as the Sami popluation, patients in governmental health institutions, immigrants, refugees, prisoners, and persons with hearing and vision disabilities.
The National Library is responsible for the implementation of the Act of Legal Deposit, and is organised under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
The Norwegian museums are governmental, municipal or private. They are coordinated by the Norwegian Museums Authority (Norsk Museumsutvikling) under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Norway has approximately 700 museums. Some 250 museums have permanent staff, the rest are run on voluntary basis. The funding of museums in Norway comes mainly from the public sector. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs is responsible for 17 museums and also for the operation of more than 300 museums via contributory funding to the responsible counties. The ten university museums in Norway are organised by the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs. The Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Transport and Communications are also responsible for running museums. The Ministry of Environment is responsible for the care of heritage sites and monuments. A decentralised museum system has developed during the last century. Most of the small museums were started as a result of local initiatives, and many district authorities have museums of their own.
The Norwegian State Archives System (Arkivverket) consists of the National Archives (Riksarkivet) which cover the central administrative institutions, and eight regional state archives for the local branches of the state administration. The municipalities/local authorities are responsible for their own archives. Some of the larger counties also have archives and offer public services. The National Archivist has the right to inspect and instruct municipal and county archives. In addition to this, there are some private archival institutions, primarily owned by the Labour Movement, as well as some owned by religious organisations.
The three sectors are governed by different institutions, participate in different national research programmes, and have no long history of co-operation. However, evidence can be found of an increasing national awareness of the need for the three sectors to work together.
In a report to the Parliament, St.meld 22 (1999-2000) “Kjelder til Kunnskap og oppleving”, concerning archives, libraries and museums, initiative was taken for a closer co-operation between the sectors.
In deliberation with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs appointed a task force for information and communication technology and other shared tasks for libraries, archives and museums in 1999. The purpose of the task force is to map areas of mutual interest for the three sectors, as well as promote co-operation between the sectors. The task force will present their recommendations for future co-operation in a report this autumn.
As a way of obtaining user access to the holdings of libraries, museums and archives through electronic nets, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs has established Culture Net Norway (Kulturnett Norge) [2]. Culture Net Norway is the official gateway to Norwegian culture on the web, and includes an extensive database containing links to various Norwegian culture sites, as well as a cultural calendar of events across the country, and news about culture and the Internet. The National Library is in charge of the net, which comprises technical infrastructure and institutions in charge of cultural tasks. Amongst other agents, the Directorate for Public Libraries, the National Archive and the Norwegian Museums Authority are involved in the work.
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| Figure 1: Culture Net Norway/Kulturnett Norge |
Since becoming a technical partner in the Cultivate project, RBT has started building a network consisting of Norwegian archives, libraries and museums. An initial meeting was held with the National Archives and Norwegian Museums Authority in 1998, and since then various formal and informal contacts have been made. It does however take time to build a network, since the three sectors have no long history of co-operation. It is a great challenge to motivate the right persons in each sector to take an active part in building the network.
A national e-mail list for EU-matters has been running from 1998. To enhance information dissemination and promote contact between the sectors, RBT has also established a new Norwegian e-mail list as a supplement to the project’s Cultivate list. RBT regularly passes on EU-information to the Norwegian list. However, the list is also meant to be open for discussions that are not related to EU projects, as all contact is likely to further the aim of building a national network.
To further information dissemination, RBT has ensured that relevant information about EU projects are always available on the RBT web. Amendments and new links are continuously made on these pages. Furthermore, articles about EU projects are regularly published in RBT’s bimonthly journal “Synopsis”. RBT will also shortly start the work on the Norwegian Cultivate web-pages.
In the Cultivate-EU project, RBT has the main responsibility for Work Package 5: Policy Monitoring. The aim for WP5 is to link administrative and professional bodies in the EU member states and associated states at national and international level. RBT is conducting a survey asking for central bodies in archives, libraries and museums in all the participating countries, as well as at European and international level. The outcome will be a guide to national, European and international organisations and associations and governmental institutions. The guide should be used for dissemination of information about opportunities and results in the IST-Programme, and act as a help to find relevant contact points or partners in other European countries.
RBT will also be involved in the Cultivate-CEE project, and are responsible for WP5 in this project as well. Hopefully this project will start in February, 2001.
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Torill Redse
Senior Adviser
Postboks 8046 Dep
N-0030 OSLO
Norway
Phone: (+47) 23 11 89 00
Fax: (+47) 23 11 89 01
Jorunn Hesjedal
Senior Executive Officer
Postboks 8046 Dep
N-0030 OSLO
Norway
Phone: (+47) 23 11 89 00
Fax: (+47) 23 11 89 01
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For citation purposes:
Redse, T. and Hesjedal, J. "National Node Column: Norway", Cultivate Interactive, issue
2, 16 October 2000
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/nodes/>
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By Philip Hunter - October 2000
The Electronic Imaging and the Visual Arts (EVA) conference 2000 was held at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh between July 27-29. The conference was co-sponsered by VASARI, SCRAN and the the National museums of Scotland. Philip Hunter reports.
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This conference was one of a series organised on an international basis by VASARI. It covers a great deal more territory than its title: 'Electronic Imaging and the Visual Arts' might be taken to imply: networked multimedia in the cultural context is its current interest, reflected in the range of papers and workshops given at this meeting.
The first day of the conference was split into three main areas: Open Access to Cultural Heritage Using Information Systems: Strategic Issues; Cultural Tourism & Technology; Cultural Web Portals. The second day sessions were: Education, Museum, Library and Archive Case Studies, Film Music and Performing Arts, New Technologies. The final day (Saturday) was devoted to two workshop sessions in Abden House (part of Edinburgh University and the headquaters of SCRAN). The first was about funding opportunities, both commercial and through the EU telematics programme (both are possible for some projects). Bernard Smith was on hand to give one of his characteristically information rich presentations about how to set about applying for telematics programme funding. The second was on issues around running Cultural Web Portals.
The opening part of the conference consisted mainly of papers on national strategies and related activities in Europe and Russia. The keynote speaker was Professor Anatoly Rakhaev, Russian Vice-Minister for Culture. The jist of his talk was that we need the information society for prosperity. The Russians, as was made clear by subsequent discussions and papers, have vast cultural resources available in theory, which might be digitized and form valuable cultural resources for the whole world. His Russian translator later gave a presentation entitled: ‘Cultural Information in Russia: a progress report’ which illustrated various problems, such as language difficulties with dissemination of Russian resources since generally there are no cyrillic character sets on European users computers.There was another presentation by Vito Capellini, who argued that we are actually ‘aiming at a universal catalogue, so finally we can know what is in the world’. He also pointed out that UNESCO is pursuing the same idea.
There was an interesting Bulgarian presentation on image compression (DJVU and LDF): these new formats produce smaller files than the JPEG format, and visibly better results. We may find that these eventually replace the current hegemony of the JPEG format for high quality images on the Internet.
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| A presentation at the Edinburgh EVA |
Bamber Gascoigne argued that the development of the internet is third in the line of:
Historyworld is an upcoming site which developed out of a CD project, and Gascoigne has been working on the Web version for the last six years. The text was completed in a Fox Pro Database and is assembled on the fly according to requests. Each piece of text is designed to fit properly into whichever context. Gascoigne used the example of an episode in Scottish history – Robert the Bruce – this is an episode which might form part of a narrative in the histories of both England and Scotland. The design of the system makes it possible to jump from a date in the timeline of one narrative to the same date in another, rather than in the beginning of the narrative of another. Coming soon!!
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| Bamber Gascoigne and Loyd Grossman in a panel session |
On the Friday after the conference proper closed, we were given an interesting tour of the new part of the National Museum which features a number of multimedia components. It transpired during this tour that the architects had one idea of how things ought to be, and the curators had another. They have around thirty multimedia displays which are not networked to a central server. The builders did cable the electrics through the floor, as is perfectly reasonable, but unfortunately sealed the channels in concrete before the computer cabling could be installed.
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| Restaurant favoured by the conference participants |
Six Cultural portals were featured in this session, and presented as tools for jungle exploration and protection against the data deluge. The portals featured included SCRAN's national portal and Mario Buccoli's 'Museumland'. This part of the conference tied in well with a special workshop session held at Abden House (SCRAN's home territory) on the Saturday afternoon (more later in this report).
Klaus Reinhardt spoke about the Exploit project, whose dissemination vehicle the Web magazine Exploit Interactive is produced at UKOLN [1] . This was a particularly interesting presentation, as it gave details of some of the other aspects of the project which as yet have a lower public profile such as the Exploit Portal, which is a European research gateway for libraries projects. This allows simple and advanced searching of a database containing information about all fourth framework programme telematics projects. This database will be extended to Multimedia Content and Tools projects of the new IST Programme, as well as national projects of the library and information sector.
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| Cultivate Interactive Display at EVA |
The TOSCA system was also particularly interesting (under the heading of tourism). It stands for: Tourist Orientation and Support in Cultural Assisted Tours. Tourist orientation has to be understood in a wide sense - not only making tourists follow a fixed pre-defined tour but also offering them information enabling them to get oriented, and to enable the dynamic configuration of their visit, either during or prior to it. Typically, orientation systems allow the definition of pre-defined paths that will be followed by tourists when using these orientation devices. The other alternative is to let the user move freely within the site (either actually or virtually) and let him access updated information associated with his current location. Two possible scenarios have been envisaged for the TOSCA prototype: insite and off site mode. The insite mode is in play when the user is actually walking around the site using TOSCA to get information. The offsite mode is when the user is not actually walking around the site but is just using the TOSCA system to move inside a virtual site and obtain information (which could be inside a tourist office). TOSCA has technical solutions for some of these, and there was an impressive virtual reality version.
Catherine Grout is the JISC Image Co-ordinator, and gave a presentation Scoping and Implementing the JISCs Distributed Image Service for Higher and Further Education in the UK (JDIS). The JDIS is conceived to function within the DNER framework. The DNER (soon to be renamed) is a managed environment for accessing quality assured information resources include scholarly journals, nonographs, textbooks, abstracts, manuscripts, maps, music scores, still images, geospatial images and other kinds of vector and numeric data as well as moving picture and sound collections.
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| Coffee break in the National Museum of Scotland |
David Anderson, Director of Learning and Visitor Services at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and also co-author of A Netful of Jewels: New Museums in the Learning Age gave one of the most interesting of the papers: Networked Museums in the Learning Age [2]. He pointed out that one of the difficulties philosophically and practically is the sector's persistence in believing that its role is to provide information, to an information society, in an information age. The economy of developed societies today is about as dependent upon information as that of Switzerland is dependent upon cuckoo clocks. Successful societies in the current century rely upon the added value provided by learning and creativity, and upon clear understanding of the difference between (in ascending order) data, information, knowledge, learning and wisdom each of which implies a different role for citizens/users. A useful illustration of what he meant was supplied in the form of pictures produced by visitors to the V&A when they were given free use of a digital camera in the building. Many of these were of high quality, using existing exhibits in new and augmented ways. In other words, a museum shouldn't just be about the supply of what it already has: its resources should be used with imagination and intelligence. He suggested that when we hear the words 'information society' or 'information age' when referring to culture, we should reach (metaphorically) for our revolvers.
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| Presentation on ceramics printing |
Bernard Smith argued that people have unrealistic expectations of what the EU 5th Framework is about, and what is available from it. From his point of view, the Digicult section of the programme has as its function the facilitation of the networking of Libraries, Museums and Archives. He suggested that a good way to go about securing project funding is to treat the EU as a black box: find out what sort of proposals have been submitted and what comes out at the other end. Around 190 proposals were received as a result of the most recent calls (3), unfortunately mostly not very interesting. 3 experts are responsible for making decisions about project funding. The programme has funded 30 proposals so far from the most recent calls.
So far there is about 1.8 m Euro worth of participation - mostly large consortia dealing with expensive problems - these projects have a sense of character about their proposals and in their fundamental research objectives. The programme makes the decision to fund or not to fund on research objectives, rather than cultural content. Most of these projects in fact do not have cultural content in the title - around 50% of the proposers fail to realise this isn't the critical part. If someone says 'tech tool for access', that's fine. But no research objectives are pursued without cultural content being part of the picture. Essentially applicants should look at the nature of the process undergone by applicants. The process happens in one week with 24 evaluations. Project proposals fail because they don't know (for example) what technology they will use. Others have ideas of the technology they will use, but not of the content. The programme is interested in solutions, but not problems. Also the programme does not fund digitization programmes. Automatic markup of gothic text is one project which is an exception.
The second workshop was on cultural Web portals, after a lunch in a pub nearby to Abden House. The question of the definition of a Web portal surfaced early, after a general discussion of the experiences of existing portals. So far, beyond the walls of those institutions actively engaged with the theoretical side of delivering cultural information in the networked environment, the conception of a cultural portal has generally been taken to imply a single or principal doorway to a number of related sites. In other words, the value of the portal lies in the fact that, by visiting one particular site, it is easy to move onwards to a number of closely related sites. About half of those present at this workshop seemed most comfortable with this model. However very quickly a number of important issues surfaced, such as: if a cultural portal offers useful information derived from a number of separate resources (such as the British Library, the Smithsonian Institution, The Louvre), perhaps the best way for the information to be presented is as an amalgamated sequence, rather than as separate pages or links. In which case a number of subsidiary issues follow on: what about the branding visibility of the supporting institutions? What kind of technology is required to make the portal function? What are the implications for the user interface? How is the distribution of income to be managed between the resources? What are the implications for the proper citing of resources accessed? How does the user know the provenance of what has been used?
Those who were interested in this complex side of portal development discussed it intensively during the whole afternoon, and the time passed very quickly. Towards the end of the session, one of the members of SCRAN who was chairing that part of the workshop observed that if, when the SCRAN project had been set up, they had been forced to consider issues of such complexity, it would have been very likely that it wouldn't have got off the ground at all. Which would have been the case for many multimedia cultural projects. However the changing shape of the means of delivery and access on the Internet means that these issues must be considered if cultural portals are to make sound decisions now about services and content which will be available several years down the line.
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Philip
Hunter
Information Officer
Editor of Ariadne
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
BA2 7AY
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 1225 826354
p.j.hunter@ukoln.ac.uk
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/>
<http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/>
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For citation purposes:
Hunter, P. "Reach for your Revolvers: EVA 2000, Edinburgh", Cultivate Interactive, issue
2, 16 October 2000
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/eva/>
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By Gerda Koch - October 2000
Two major events regarding EU project participation in the cultural heritage field took place this June in Austria. On the 29th June the National Information Day for libraries, museums and archives took place, and on the 30th of June the Cultural Heritage Projects Concertation Event of the European Commission was held at the Federal Department of Austria, Vienna.
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Both events were organised by the Austrian Node for the EU Accompanying Measure CULTIVATE EU - the Cultural Service Centre Austria - together with the Austrian Ministry for Education, Science and Culture and the European Commission.
The first day, the National Information Day, was devoted to public information work regarding European Union cultural heritage projects. The presentations began with an introduction to the event by Mr. Seitz and Mr. Kneucker of the Austrian ministry of Education, Science and Culture. They also gave an overview on the European Technology Programmes. Next a talk was given by the representatives of three well-known Austrian cultural organisations in the fields of libraries, museums and archives on their connection to cultural heritage and relevance for national cultural organisations. These were Mr. Marte, director of the Austrian National Library, Mr. Seipl, director of the Art History Museum, and Mr. Kammerhofer, presenting for the director of the Austrian State Archive.
Mr. Smith the head of the European Commission Unit ‘Digital Heritage and Cultural Content’ presented the IST – Information Society Technology - and Key Action III (Multimedia and Content) results from the EU-perspective. The 5th RTD Framework (1998-2002) contains the thematic programme "User-friendly Information Society" in which the key action "multimedia content and tools" (Key Action III, KA III), with a budget of 564 Euro, integrates as one of its topics "Digital Heritage and Cultural Content". Within the framework the “access to scientific and cultural content through the networking of libraries, archives and museums" is stressed. Mr. Smith gave an overview on factual data, participation in projects, digital libraries projects, visualisation projects, cultural institutions and international co-operation of the first call in this area which had closed in June 1999. In addition he presented an overview of the 2nd Call and the Work Programme 2000, in which the issues "Access to digital collections of cultural and scientific content", "Virtual representations of cultural and scientific objects", "Trials on new access modes to cultural and scientific content" and "Virtual representation and preservation of cultural and scientific objects, including relevant policy issues" are of special importance for cultural heritage organisations. Later on Mr. Smith pointed out the differences between hard and soft RTD projects and networks of excellence, and presented a list of warning signs for proposal contents. He concluded his presentation with explanations on KA III.1.5. "Trials on new access modes to cultural and scientific content" and KA III.1.6. "Virtual representations of cultural and scientific objects", finally reminding the audience that all the handed in proposals should focus on the real needs, and the solutions that people want, that the research must be carried out with a purpose, and realistic and practical results should be defined in order to develop replicable solutions which others can use and which reinforce the value and visibility of our European cultural institutions [1].
The Austrian IST-delegate Mr. Goebl of the Austrian Ministry of Traffic, Innovation and Technology then gave an informative report on the Austrian results of the Key Action III from the first and second call. He indicated the topics, the players, and the strengths and weaknesses of Austrian proposals handed in for these calls [2].
The morning session was concluded by Mr. Wohlkinger of BIT who outlined in which ways the Bureau for International Research and Technology-Cooperation can support Austrian organisations in the submission of EU proposals.
In the afternoon the thematic focus of the event was initially laid upon the CULTIVATE network when Mrs. Fernandez de la Puente from the Digicult Department of the Commission gave a general introduction to the CULTIVATE-EU - European Network for Cultural Heritage Applications. She was followed by Mr. Reinhardt, of the Former German Libraries Institute, who presented the work of the German Cultivate Node and Mr. Koch, of CSC Austria, who outlined the services of the Austrian Cultivate Node [3].
The event finally finished with the interesting presentations of already successful projects with Austrian participation in the fields of libraries, museums and archives. These projects were the LAURIN (Libraries and Archives Collecting Newspaper Clippings - Unified for their Integration into Network) and TESTLAB (Testing Systems using Telematics for Library Access for Blind and Visually Handicapped Readers) projects for libraries of the 4th framework, and for the 5th framework the COVAX (Contemporary Culture Virtual Archives in XML) project for museums, and the VENIVA (VENetIan Virtual Archive) project in the archives sector.
The information day on the whole presented a wide overview starting with an introduction to the European Technologies Programmes for Cultural Heritage, then shifting from an Austrian national perspective on proposal submission and consulting support to an introduction of the EU-Accompanying Measure CULTIVATE-EU and finishing with the presentation of successful EU-projects with Austrian participation. Over 140 people attended the event, which will be organised every year by the Austrian National CULTIVATE Node. In addition to this National Information Day Regional Information Days, addressing regional cultural organisations and technology providers will be organised. The first of these regional information days will be held on the 9th of November 2000 at Salzburg.
The cultural heritage projects concertation events aim to provide an information platform for participants from diverse EU-funded projects in the field of cultural heritage. The events offer a broad discussion and co-operation forum for project partners in relating fields of research and development.
The Vienna concertation event was divided into a morning session where diverse projects were presented by the different project participants, and an afternoon session where two parallel workshops took place. The whole event stands out against other events because for the first time the morning session was opened to the public and over 80 people seized the opportunity of being informed about ongoing EU- cultural heritage projects and of meeting the project participants and European Commission officials.
The event was opened by a representative of the Austrian ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Mr. Wran, and the Head of the Digicult Department of the European Commission. A keynote speech was given by Mr. Werther, a member of the ISTAG, the Information Society Technology Advisory Group which provides the Commission with independent advice concerning the content and direction of research work to be carried out under the IST Programme.
13 EU projects within the cultural heritage field were introduced during the day. The Powerpoint files of the individual presentations as well as further contact information can be found on the concertation Web site [4].
In the afternoon session the workshops, which were restricted to project participants, focussed on “Metadata issues in Cultural Heritage projects” and “Authentication and Authorisation issues”. Over 40 people took part in these workshops. After an introduction to each of the topics the participants of projects dealing with the issues gave presentations and discussed related questions.
In conclusion it can be said that the opening up of one part of the event to the public was perceived as a step in the right direction and clearly revealed the strong interest of national cultural heritage organisations for European Union projects.
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Gerda Koch
Cultural Service Centre Austria
AUSTRIAN CULTIVATE NODE
Hans-Sachsgasse 14/3
A-8010 Graz
Austria
gerda.koch@cscaustria.at
<http://www.cultivate.at/>
Phone: +43.316.811210-0
Fax: +43.316.811210-30
Gerda Koch works for the Cultural Service Centre Austria, a non-profit organization for the support and development of information presentation at cultural heritage organisations. The CSC Austria also acts as the Austrian national node within the European Union Accompanying Measure Project "CULTIVATE-EU".
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For citation purposes:
Koch, G. "National Information Day and Concertation Event Vienna 2000", Cultivate Interactive, issue
2, 16 October 2000
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/vienna/>
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By Neil Thomson - October 2000
Neil Thomson reports on work in progress to provide information about the many and varied collections that are held at The Natural History Museum [1] in London, UK. Records from the collections management and research systems will have their core fields mapped onto the Dublin Core metadata standard, harvested and stored in a separate, publicly available, summary system. This will be complemented by a set of collection-level descriptions in EAD (Encoded Archival Description) for all collections, whether their records are in electronic form or not.
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The Natural History Museum (NHM) is well known for its world-class exhibitions in the cathedral-like Waterhouse building in South Kensington, London. Less well known is the research that is carried out by over 300 scientists, working on the huge collections also housed at the site. In addition to the 68 million specimens, there is a large library that contains nearly 1 million volumes, around 500,000 items of original artwork along with maps and manuscripts. The Museum also holds its own archives as an official Public Record Office Place of Deposit. Add to this the public exhibitions, web pages, collections of electronic images and datasets and it can be seen that a method of accurately knowing what collections exist is vital.
Only a small proportion of these collections can be on display to the public, but the NHM is keen that all its collections should be known about and accessible. To this end a new initiative, the Darwin Centre [2], is currently being constructed, with both physical and electronic components. The physical component is a new building occupying the west end of the site. This will initially focus on the Museum's zoological collections, allowing unprecedented public access to the scientific laboratories and collection stores. Future developments will focus on the Museum's entomological and botanical collections.
The Darwin Centre will also feature an extensive IT infrastructure. This will give public access to the Museum's collections database and will also provide tools such as identification guides for studying the natural world and issues relating to its conservation. This system will be available for visitors to the Darwin Centre, and also, via the Internet, to professionals, academics and general users throughout the world.
Part of the IT development work will be to create a system that will hold summary information about the Museum’s collections. The two main components of this will be:
Currently, an enquirer who wants to know what the Museum has about a particular butterfly, for example, has to make their enquiry of several systems. They might discover that we hold the type specimen for that butterfly (the ‘type’ is the specimen to which the published name of the species is tied and which serves as a reference standard for a specific taxon: the Museum holds more than one-half of the world’s currently existing ‘types’). They might discover that we also hold a watercolour painting of the butterfly; that an example of the species is on public display in the Museum’s exhibitions area; and that our Library contains a copy of the published type description. All this research, however, would need to take place in separate systems.
It was therefore decided to create a new separate system with 4 objectives:
The information architecture is based on a three-layer model.
The bottom layer contains the actual specimens, books, drawings, electronic resources and so forth that people want to see and use.
The middle layer contains the rich description systems that are tailored for use by experts for research or management purposes. For example in the library there is Unicorn to manage the bibliographic material owned by the Museum and IdeaList for the Archives. External Internet-available electronic resources are described in software provided by BIOME [5], through which the NHM contributes records to the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER). Cheshire II software [6] may be used in conjunction with the EAD-encoded collection level descriptions. Many other systems are in use in the science departments, each tailored to their specific purpose. Much information is also available on the Museum’s Web site and in its exhibitions.
The top layer is the summary system, containing core data harvested from each existing rich system into a consistent format and, where feasible, pointing back to the richer information from which it was derived. This summary data is the equivalent of a person’s business card – it contains just enough information to allow the enquirer to identify whether this is what they seek and indicates where to find the detailed, richer information.
The work of CIMI, the Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information [7], has been particularly valuable in testing the suitability of Dublin Core for describing not only the electronic resources for which it was initially intended, but also museum (or “offline”) objects. Participating in CIMI’s Dublin Core Testbed Project provided the opportunity to pool records with those from a wide variety of other organisations to determine the feasiblility of record harvesting, mapping and cross-domain resource discovery.
By using international standards such as Dublin Core, EAD and Z39.50, it is intended that in a similar way, the NHM can provide a resource discovery system that spans the information domains that it covers internally. This “whole-museum response” could also become the NHM’s contribution to the “whole-community response” when enquiries can be directed to multiple organisations using the same international standards.
Dublin Core may provide a consistent format to hold minimal information about museum objects and collections, but the bigger problem remains of making the terminology consistent when it has been drawn from a variety of sources.
There are a few fields that, if the data they contained were consistent, would make retrieval considerably more accurate and complete. A good example is geographic place name. The two most frequently asked questions about natural history are: “Where might I find this species?” and “Which species might I find in this place?”
Fortunately, there is a very good Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) [8], produced by the Getty Research Institute. For new and future databases that are being designed in the Museum, guidance will indicate the advantages of using such sources, possibly in addition to the researcher’s favourite term, to aid retrieval by place name through the summary system.
In other cases there is no similar tool available, although efforts are being made to create, for example, standard lists of species names. The NHM is itself committed to creating a master list of all UK species as part of its contribution to the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) [9].
Given the extent of the NHM’s collections, it will be many years before a database record exists for each item. A new project is being initiated that will create descriptive records of each collection as a whole, whether electronic records for it exist or not, based on a rather loose definition of a collection. When this Project is completed, enquirers will be provided with a narrative description of the contents of each collection, in addition to being able to get to item-level records, where these exist.
It is likely that EAD (Encoded Archival Description) will be used to produce these collection-level descriptions. As a result of collaboration with the Public Record Office [10], the Archives Section will use EAD and, as it is specifically designed to deal with collections and their components, there seems to be a good case for using the standard to also describe the Museum’s non-archival collections.
A major advantage of EAD is the way that it handles collections within collections, such as the bequest that contains specimens, notebooks, photographs and a database. Other advantages include the ease with which Dublin Core metadata may be extracted for entry into the summary system, the re-usability of the information for other purposes and the ability to point to related material and digital surrogates.
Once the system is running, a sample enquiry may go something like this:
An enquirer is interested in George Forster, the artist. Entering the name into the summary system provides a hit-list of results, including one for the collection-level record which describes the Museum’s collection of drawings by Forster from Captain Cook’s second voyage around the world.
Clicking on this entry in the hit-list displays the collection-level record itself, which contains the narrative description of the collection, based on that published by the Museum as part of the Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) in 1978. This in turn points to thumbnail images of selected drawings from the collection. Clicking on an image may return details of how to order a high-resolution image or print from the Museum’s Picture Library.
For the first time, it will be possible to get information about all of the Museum’s collections from a single source. This should be of benefit to researchers, educators and the purposeful enquirer and start to unlock the incredible riches that are held within The Natural History Museum in London.
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Neil Thomson
Head of Systems & Central Services
The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
LONDON
SW7 5BD
United Kingdom
n.thomson@nhm.ac.uk
<http://www.nhm.ac.uk/>
Phone: +44 020 7942 5294
Fax: +44 020 7942 5559
Neil Thomson heads one of the four divisions that make up the Department of Library and Information Services at The Natural History Museum. The Division of Systems & Central Services is responsible for the behind-the-scenes aspects of the library, such as acquisitions, cataloguing and the development of computer-based information systems.
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For citation purposes:
Thomson, N. "Towards a Whole-Museum Response: Discovering The Natural History Museum's Collections", Cultivate Interactive, issue
2, 16 October 2000
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue2/natural/>
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ISSN 1471-3225 |