Libraries and Museums in the Flat World: Are They Becoming Virtual Destinations?

In his recent book, “TheWorld is Flat”, Thomas L. Friedman reviews the impact of networks on globalization. The emergence of the Internet, web browsers, computer applications talking to each other through the Internet, and the open source software, among others, made the world flatter and created an opportunity for individuals to collaborate and compete globally. Friedman predicts that “connecting all the knowledge centers on the planet together into a single global network…could usher in an amazing era of prosperity and innovation”. Networking also is changing the ways by which libraries and museums provide access to information sources and services. In the flat world, libraries and museums are no longer a physical “place” only: they are becoming “virtual destinations”. This paper discusses the implications of this transformation for the digitization and preservation of, and access to, cultural heritage resources

New Renaissance (The)

Les sages de ce comité ont procédé à l\u27étude du projet de numérisation de l\u27ensemble du patrimoine culturel européen et proposent dans ce rapport une série de recommandations visant à encadrer cet ambitieux programme afin de : -partager notre patrimoine commun, dans toute sa richesse et sa diversité ; - relier notre passé à notre présent ; - préserver cet héritage pour les générations futures ; - protéger les intérêts des créateurs européens ; - favoriser la créativité, celles des professionnels comme celles des amateur

Preserving Europe\u27s Cultural Heritage in the Digital World

This paper examines the potential for preserving Europe\u27s cultural heritage in a digital world. After an extensive literature review on the economics of museums and the digitization of cultural heritage, it highlights national and international political initiatives to create cooperative cultural heritage systems. As a mean of achieving global integration while simultaneously keeping institutional independence, this work proposes \u27Digital Autonomous Cultural Objects (DACOs)\u27 as reference architecture. This paper illustrates the contribution of DACOs with two real-life projects serving as proof-of-concept. Finally, the paper offers some \u27Lessons Learned\u27 and an outlook to wider preservation of Europe\u27s cultural heritage in the digital world

Bulgariana: A Bulgarian Aggregator to Europeana

Europeana is the European virtual museum which was established in 2008. Its ambition is to create a common space allowing to access the cultural heritage of Europe from a single portal, by creating a network in all European countries. To make the initiative technically possible, Europeana has built a technological infrastructure to aggregate metadata from the different Europeana countries and memory institutions, while keeping the original digitized content on their sites. This paper presents Bulgariana, the Bulgarian chapter of Europeana. It is part of the technical infrastructure of Europeana, an established technical aggregator of Bulgarian cultural heritage content. It uses the two Europeana representation models ESE and EDM. Bulgariana is also a community building initiative putting in place a Bulgarian wide network of professionals and institutions working together to preserve and present Bulgarian cultural heritage around the world

Assessing the Role of Cultural Resources as a Key Product for Socio-Economic Development

Post-industrial, knowledge societies need Culture! The various types of culture represent a multidimensional asset largely underestimated, with an extremely powerful potential for socioeconomic growth which is unfortunately still very far from being fully expressed. In this paper, organizational models and technological solutions are proposed as key factors for enabling full expression of an asset that could positively affect several aspects of our life. In fact, if intelligently managed, Culture can provide: • High quality content: the proliferation of new media, like 3g mobile phones or pay TVs, is generating digital spaces that need to be filled with useful and appealing contents. • Socio-economic development: many of the poorest countries host amazing heritage resources that could attract tourists. Cultural tourism is a segment that shows signs of growth all over the world. • Cross-cultural integration: culture is extremely effective for helping people from different areas of this planet in better understanding each other. • Identity building: with the emerging working model based on “boundaryless careers”, it is vital to invest on Culture for building one’s own existential, social, and professional identity. Among the different branches that compose the Culture, it has been chosen to concentrate on the cultural heritage for its intrinsic multidimensional value and its tight connections with one of the leading world industries: the tourism. However, a careful management and wide dissemination of Culture would enhance the fundamental resources of nations. These resources can be organised in two categories of capital: • Human Capital. That is: promoting the creativity of individuals. We define as “creative” sectors like arts, fashion, design, architecture, but also the research of innovation, be it scientific, economic, or technological. • Territorial Capital. That is the territory, its history, landscape, traditions, craftsmanship, and typical products. The Cultural Heritage obviously belongs to this category. The implementation of carefully designed organisational configurations and wisely customised technological solutions can provide the foundations required for allowing the heritage sector in obtaining its right place in the socio-economic scenario. The core issue of this framework is to identify the source of value, that will soon be the main, for cultural heritage institutions that interact with the public, directly or indirectly: the final user

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee on scientific information in the digital age: access, dissemination and preservation

El objetivo de esta Comunicación es hacer patente la importancia de poner en marcha un proceso sobre el acceso y la difusión de la información científica y las estrategias para la preservación de la dicha información en la Unión Europea. A tal fin se señala la necesidad de un debate político permanente.Commission of the European Communitie

Consider the Source: The Value of Source Code to Digital Preservation Strategies

One of the major challenges in the digital preservation field is the difficulty of ensuring long-term access to digital objects, especially in cases when the software that was used to create an object is no longer current. Software source code has a human-readable, documentary structure that makes it an overlooked aspect of digital preservation strategies, in addition to a valuable component for the records of modern computing history. The author surveys several approaches to software preservation and finds that, by supporting open source initiatives, digital libraries can improve their ability to preserve access to their collections for future generations

Access to Digital Cultural Heritage: Innovative Applications of Automated Metadata Generation Chapter 1: Digitization of Cultural Heritage – Standards, Institutions, Initiatives

The first chapter "Digitization of Cultural Heritage – Standards, Institutions, Initiatives" provides an introduction to the area of digitisation. The main pillars of process of creating, preserving and accessing of cultural heritage in digital space are observed. The importance of metadata in the process of accessing to information is outlined. The metadata schemas and standards used in cultural heritage are discussed. In order to reach digital objects in virtual space they are organized in digital libraries. Contemporary digital libraries are trying to deliver richer and better functionality, which usually is user oriented and depending on current IT trend. Additionally, the chapter is focused on some initiatives on world and European level that during the years enforce the process of digitization and organizing digital objects in the cultural heritage domain. In recent years, the main focus in the creation of digital resources shifts from "system-centred" to "user-centred" since most of the issues around this content are related to making it accessible and usable for the real users. So, the user studies and involving the users on early stages of design and planning the functionality of the product which is being developed stands on leading position