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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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