Re-use of public sector information in cultural heritage institutions

In 2013 the European Union amended the Directive on Public Sector Information, establishing the principle that all available information produced and collected by public sector institutions must be made available for reuse under open terms and conditions. The amended Directive also brings publicly funded libraries, museums and archives into its scope. These new rules on reuse of heritage materials, treated as public sector information (PSI), attempt for the first time to define a general framework for sharing cultural heritage information all around Europe. In this paper we argue that if Member States are not careful, the implementation of the changes required by the new Directive could do more harm than good when it comes to access to digitized cultural heritage in Europe. These concerns center on how the directive interacts with copyright legislation. The paper recommends that in order to contribute to the opening up of cultural heritage resources, Member States should ensure that all qualifying documents that are not currently covered by third party intellectual property rights fall within the scope of the Directive. Member States should also implement the Directive in a way that does not encourage or require institutions to charge for the reuse of works that they make available for reuse. For documents that are still protected by intellectual property rights but where these rights are held by the cultural heritage institutions that have these works in their collections, Member States should encourage the use of Open Definition-compliant licenses

Using choice experiments to explore the spatial distribution of willingness to pay for rural landscape improvements

We report findings from a choice experiment survey designed to estimate the economic benefits from policy measures which improve the rural landscape under an agri-environment scheme in the Republic of Ireland. Using a panel mixed logit specification to account for unobserved taste heterogeneity we derive individual- specific willingness to pay estimates for each respondent in the sample. We subsequently investigate the existence of spatial dependence of these estimates. Results suggest the existence of positive spatial autocorrelation for all rural landscape attributes. As a means of benefit transfer, kriging methods are employed to interpolate willingness to pay estimates across the whole of the Republic of Ireland. The kriged WTP surfaces confirm the existence of spatial dependence and illustrate the implied spatial variation and regional disparities in WTP for all the rural landscape improvements

The American Assembly: Art, Technology, and Intellectual Property

Examines intellectual property issues as the arts sector joins other sectors in the race to deal with an increasingly information-driven economy

Geodesign in Pampulha cultural and heritage urban area: Visualization tools to orchestrate urban growth and dynamic transformations

This paper discusses the role of visualization in Geodesign methodology consideringits applications in the case study of the region of Pampulha in Belo Horizonte,Minas Gerais, Brazil. In order to consider the opinion of the participants, their effortswere recorded in different steps of the process, at different stages of Geodesign iterations,and different possibilities of visualization were tested. The methodology of Geodesignwas applied in different applications and with different tools. The goal was to determinewhether different techniques and tools used in the process of Geodesign contributed toimproved understanding of data and problem context, and to derive guidelines for improvedGeodesign techniques and tools

Economics and Heritage Conservation: A Meeting Organized by the Getty Conservation Institute, December 1998

Investigates the contributions that economic discourse and analysis can make to the work of conservation of heritage objects, collections, buildings, and sites

An Agent-Based Decision Support Model for the Development of E-Services in the Tourist Sector

This paper regards cultural heritage as a strategic development tool for urban tourist policy. It highlights the use of e-services as a central instrument in a competitive tourist sector. The appropriate choice of e-services - and packages thereof - depends on the various strategic considerations of urban stakeholders (agents) and may differ for each individual city. The paper offers a systematic analysis framework for supporting these choices and deploys multi-criteria analysis as a systematic evaluation methodology, in particular the Regime method. The evaluation framework is exemplified through an application to three field cases in Europe, viz. the cities of Amsterdam, Genoa and Leipzig. Our analysis concludes that tailor-made packages of e-services that serve the needs of the stakeholders can be made with the help of our evaluation tools.cultural heritage, e-services, city marketing, agent-based decision support model

AN AGENT-BASED DECISION SUPPORT MODEL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF E-SERVICES IN THE TOURIST SECTOR

This paper regards cultural heritage as a strategic development tool for urban tourist policy. It highlights the use of e-services as a central instrument in a competitive tourist sector. The appropriate choice of e-services – and packages thereof – depends on the various strategic considerations of urban stakeholders (agents) and may differ for each individual city. The paper offers a systematic analysis framework for supporting these choices and deploys multi-criteria analysis as a systematic evaluation methodology, in particular the Regime method. The evaluation framework is exemplified through an application to three field cases in Europe, viz. the cities of Amsterdam, Genoa and Leipzig. Our analysis concludes that tailor-made packages of e-services that serve the needs of the stakeholders can be made with the help of our evaluation tools.

Preparing to Preserve: Three Essential Steps to Building Experience with Long-Term Digital Preservation

Many organizations face complex questions of how to implement affordable and sustainable digital preservation practices. One strategic priority at the University Libraries at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, United States, is increased focus toward preservation of unique digital assets, whether digitized from physical originals or born digital. A team comprised of experts from multiple functional library departments (including the special collections/archives area and the technology area) was established to help address this priority, and efforts are beginning to translate into operational practice. This work outlines a three-step approach: Partnership, Policy, Pilot taken by one academic research library to strategically build experience utilizing a collaborative team approach. Our experience included the formation of a team, education of all members, and a foundational attitude that decisions would be undertaken as partners rather than competing departments or units. The team’s work included the development of an initial digital preservation policy, helping to distill the organizational priority and values associated with digital preservation. Several pilot projects were initiated and completed, which provided realistic, first-person experience with digital preservation activities, surfaced questions, and set the stage for developing and refining sustainable workflows. This work will highlight key activities in our journey to date, with the hope that experience gained through this effort could be applicable, in whole or part, to other organizations regardless of their size or capacity

Unified Task Force Report to the Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission

A unified report from the nine disaster recovery task forces outlining the way to a long-term recovery for Iowa surpassing just a return to normal