MINERVA — Towards a European Platform for Digitisation

MINERVA - Towards a European Platform for Digitisation of Cultural and Scientific Content Belgrade CALIMERA Conference Belgrade, November 15 th, 2004 Giuliana De Francesco

MINERVA framework e. Europe initiative (december 1999) Lund, 4 th April 2001: meeting of experts and representatives from EU Member States Lund Principles Lund Action Plan 2

Lund Principles: MINERVA framework Digitisation of Europe's cultural and scientific heritage is crucial: • For providing improved access for citizens • For preserving Europe's collective cultural heritage (both past and future) • For sustaining cultural diversity in a global environment • Is a key resource for education and for the tourism and media industries To progress, an ongoing forum for coordination of digitisation policies was needed Lund Action Plan: • establishes a set of actions to be carried out by Member States and EC 3

National Representatives Group - NRG Set up of the National Representatives Group (NRG), made up of representatives officially appointed by Member States • to coordinate digitisation policies and programmes • to facilitate and monitor the adoption and implementation of the Lund Principles and Action Plan NAS NRG appointed in 2003 The NRG meets every 6 months 7 th NRG meeting: 17 th September 2004, The Hague. Next meeting in Luxembourg Charter of Parma Strategic document continuing and supporting the Lund Principles, approved at the 5 th NRG meeting in Parma 4

MINERVA Ministerial NEtwo. Rk for Valorising Activities in digitisation • is the “operative arm” of the NRG for implementing Lund Action Plan and organising its working groups • funded by the EC IST 5 th Framework Programme (2002– 2005) A network of Member States’ Ministries: • to discuss, correlate and harmonise activities carried out in digitisation of European cultural content • to create an agreed European platform made up of recommendations and guidelines • to give international visibility to national initiatives • to embed the results of European coordination in national digitisation activities 5

MINERVA and MINERVA Plus 7 original partners: • Belgium • Finland • France • Italy • Spain • Sweden • United Kingdom MINERVA Plus (funded by the EC IST 6 th FP) extends the network to: • the 15 former EU Member States, • the NAS (6 at start: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, • Malta, Poland, Slovenia) Israel and Russia 6

How MINERVA works • Working groups Publications (guidelines, handbooks, reports) • Networking activities (enlargement of the network, website, newsletter, workshops, dissemination, online training, cooperation with other projects) 7

MINERVA Workgroups 1. Inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingualism. M+ specific topic: multilingual thesauri 2. Interoperability and service provision , IPR issues M+ specific topic: business models for digitisation programmes 3. Identification of user needs, quality framework for common access points M+ specific topic: small cultural institutions requirements 4. Good practices and competence centres M+ specific topic: digitisation cost reduction www. minervaeurope. org 8

MINERVA Publications «Handbook for Quality in Cultural Websites: Improving Quality for Citizens • Cultural Websites Quality Principles • Commentary and exploration of the ten quality principles «Good Practice Handbook 9

MINERVA Publications « Technical Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content Creation Programmes • NOT a single prescriptive set of requirements to which all projects must conform: • seeks to identify those areas in which there is already commonality of approach and to provide a core around which context-specific requirements might be built • in order that the content produced is as widely useful, portable and durable as possible, resources should be interoperable • the appropriate use of standards in digitisation can deliver the consistency that makes interoperability possible • standards support also access, preservation, security 10

MINERVA Publications: NRG Report « Coordinating Digitisation in Europe. Progress Report of the National Representatives Group • • • Policies, programmes and projects in the field of digitisation of cultural and scientific heritage carried on in Member States Progress of the coordination initiative Annual « 2003: includes contributions from NAS, Israel and Russia 11

Cooperation: Digitisation cluster MINERVA promoted a coordination among European cultural networks/projects. Purpose: • avoiding duplication of effort and waste of resources • merging efforts together to maximise the impact of the individual projects • sharing knowledge and exchanging experience • promoting results (studies, reports, guidelines) • adopting common standards and common agendas Networks involved: : BRICKS CALIMERA DELOS DIGICULT FORUM EMII-DCF EPOCH ERPANET Euromed Heritage II EVA HEREIN MINERVA MUSICNETWORK PRESTOSPACE SCRAN 12

MINERVA spin offs MICHAEL - Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe (www. michael-culture. org) « funded by e. TEN « partners: initially France, Italy, and UK « develops MINERVA achievements in the fields Inventories of digitised content and Interoperability « Will develop a trans-european inventory of digital cultural collections « open source software, open standards-based EURIDICE – EUropean Recommended materials for DIstance learning Courses for Educator – project under negotiation (e. Ten) 13

Opportunities INTERREG initiative • Strand B: cross-national cooperation • CADSES www. cadses. net • Among thematic priorities: § Priority 2: Efficient and sustainable transport systems and access to the information society § Priority 3: Promotion and management of landscape, natural and cultural heritage 14

Find out more! www. minervaeurope. org contact details: defrancesco@beniculturali. it rcaffo@beniculturali. it Thank you for your kind attention 15