Digital meets Culture

XIX Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries

International conference TPDL 2015. Final agenda online!

The International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL) constitutes a leading scientific forum on digital libraries that brings together researchers, developers, content providers and users in the field of digital libraries. TPDL 2015 is organised by Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center and will be held in Poznań, Poland, on September 14-18, 2015.

Digitalmeetsculture has been appointed as Media Partner of the International Event and will follow the Conference in Poland with costant updates.

EARLY REGISTRATION CLOSES ON 31ST OF JULY!

Aims and scope

Valuable and rapidly increasing volumes of data are created or transformed into digital form by all fields of scientific, educational, cultural, governmental and industry activities. For this purpose the digital libraries community has developed long-term and interdisciplinary research agendas, providing significant results, such as development of Digital Libraries, solving practical problems, accomodating research data and satisfying the needs of specific user communities.

The advent of the technologies that enhance the exchange of information with rich semantics is of particular interest in the community. Information providers inter-link their metadata with user contributed data and offer new services outlooking to the development
of a web of data and addressing the interoperability and long-term preservation challenges.

TPDL 2015 under the general theme “Connecting Digital Collections”, invites submissions for scientific and research work in the following categories: Full Papers, Short Papers, Posters and Demonstrations, Workshops and Tutorials, Panels and Doctoral Consortium. All submissions will be reviewed on the basis of relevance, originality, importance and clarity in a triple peer review process. The TPDL 2015 proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.

Industry submissions are especially welcome, and a dedicated conference track is planned for them if many quality submissions are received.

Topics

General areas of interests include, but are not limited to, the following topics

Connecting digital libraries:

exploring semantic web and linked data
data mining and extraction of structure from networked information
multilingual information retrieval
metadata aggregation models
interoperability and information integration
ontologies and knowledge organisation systems, networked information
applications of digital libraries

Practice of digital libraries:

quality assurance in digital libraries
scalability and high availability of digital libraries
infrastructures supporting content processing
user studies for and evaluation of digital library systems and applications
large scale digital preservation infrastructures for cultural heritage
digital curation
multimedia information management and retrieval
user interfaces and user experience

Digital libraries in science:

digital humanities
scholarly primitives
research data and virtual organisations
visualisation in digital libraries
digital libraries as source of big data for humanities

Users, communities, personal data:

social networking, web 2.0 and collaborative interfaces in digital libraries
social-technical perspectives of digital information
user mobility and context awareness in information access
personal information management and personal digital libraries
long term preservation in personal digital libraries
community-driven digital libraries

Special track: Digital Libraries in the industry

Important Dates

Type of contribution	Proposals deadline	Notification of acceptance	Camera ready versions
Full and Short papers, Posters and Demonstrations	~~2015/03/20~~ 2015/03/30	~~2015/05/22~~ 2015/06/05	~~2015/06/12~~ 2015/06/19
Workshops, Panels and Tutorials	~~2015/02/28~~ 2015/03/09	2015/04/13	—
Doctoral Consortium	2015/06/30	2015/07/10	—
Systems and Products Track	2015/07/05	2015/07/20	—

Registration

June 01, 2015 – Early registration opens
July 31, 2015 – Early registration end
August 01, 2015 – Regular registration opens
August 31, 2015 – Registration ends

Events

September 14, 2015 – Tutorials
September 15-17, 2015 – Main conference
September 17-18, 2015 – Workshops

International Journal on Digital Libraries – TPDL2015 Focused Issue

November 1, 2015 – Submission of extended papers (for invited authors only)
February, 2016 – First round of reviews
April, 2016 – Submission of revised versions of papers, based on reviewers’ comments
May, 2016 – Second round of reviews
June, 2016 – Submission of final versions of papers, based on reviewers’ comments
July, 2016 – Final decision on accepted papers
September, 2016 – Publication of the IJDL focused issue

Formatting Instructions

Full papers (12 pages), short-papers (6 pages), posters and demonstrations (4 pages) must be written in English and submitted in PDF format. The TPDL 2015 proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

Therefore all submissions should conform to the formatting instructions described in the “For Authors” webpage. For Doctoral Consortium, papers are expected to have a maximum of 8-10 pages, including references. Papers is recommended to be formatted according to Springer LNCS guidelines. In case your paper includes images or screenshots please ensure that you set image compression at 600dpi when you produce your PDF file.

Submission

All papers, short-papers, posters and demonstrations must be submitted in electronic format (PDF) via the conference’s EasyChair submission page (TBA). According to the Registration Regulation for TPDL 2015, inclusion of papers in the Proceedings is conditional upon registration of at least one author per paper.

Organisation

General Chairs:
Cezary Mazurek, PSNC, Poland
Marcin Werla, PSNC, Poland

Programme Chair:
Sarantos Kapidakis, Ionian University, Greece

Organising Chair:
Damian Niemir, PSNC, Poland

More information at tpdl2015.info. View the event’s final agenda.

Oslo, 12 June 2015: the project presents its final report for tapping into heritage’s full potential

Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe: final report

Europe’s cultural heritage (built and natural) has a huge value for Europe’s economy, society and environment. To this end there is a need to develop an EU strategy for cultural and natural heritage, a strategy that values heritage as a crucial asset and resource. Such a strategy should be fully integrated within the EU’s key economic priorities as set out in the overall EU strategy for 2020. It should also enable heritage’s contribution to the EU agendas on sustainability, Creative Europe, research and innovation, climate change, energy saving, regional and rural development and territorial cohesion.

Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe: Towards a European Index for Cultural Heritage is a two-year project funded by the EU Culture Programme (2007-2013). Recently concluded, the project aimed to raise greater awareness on the multiple benefits of cultural heritage and present policy recommendations for tapping into heritage’s full potential.

Zsolnay Cultural Quarter in Pécs, Hungary, created during the European Capital of Culture project in Pécs in 2010. Now one of the main sites impacting the city’s attractiveness and brand. (Photo: Rosino, cc by-nc-sa 2.0)

Made up of a consortium of six partners from Belgium, The Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom, Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe had the ambition to present solid and persuasive arguments for convincing policy and decision makers on the impact and multiple benefits of investing in European heritage, thanks to a mapping of existing evidence-based research at European, national, regional, local and/or sectoral level. The aim was also to reach 300 Heritage NGOs and Agencies throughout Europe, 300 universities and educational institutions, public and private corporations, from the local to the European level ones, and the wider interested public.

The Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe project has resulted in a nearly 300 page report that provides compelling evidence of the value of cultural heritage and its impact on Europe’s economy, culture, society and the environment. The full report is available for free download.

Key findings of the project show how adopting a holistic approach is an added value when measuring the impact of cultural heritage on employment, identity, regional attractiveness, creativity & innovation, economic contribution, climate change, quality of life, education & lifelong learning and social cohesion.

In the report’s Executive Summary and Strategic Recommendations, the project’s Steering Committee calls for the elaboration of specific “heritage indicators” to facilitate and improve the collection of cultural statistics which are key to support policy makers in evidence-based policy making; for the holistic impact assessment to be conducted as a requirement in all EU-funded heritage projects to better measure impact and monitor trends over a longer period of time. The Steering Committee also asks EU Institutions and its Member States at all levels of governance to integrate the care, protection and proper use of heritage in all related policies, programmes and actions and to include all stakeholders and civil society in developing strategies and policies for cultural heritage. Last but not least, it calls for the recognition of heritage’s positive contribution to regional and local sustainable development in the context of the mid-term review of the Structural Funds (in 2016-2017) and the preparation for the next generation of Structural Funds beyond 2020.

In addition to the key findings and strategic recommendations, the report provides a snapshot in time of the currently available and accessible data within EU Members States on the wide-ranging impacts of cultural heritage in Europe. To illustrate and complement the key findings and conclusions from the macro and meso level research that was set out in the main body of the report, case studies from Belgium, Poland and laureates of the EU Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards have been selected to provide “real-life” examples of where heritage is perceived to have succeeded in having a positive impact in the economic, social, cultural and environmental domains.

About Europa Nostra, the project leader:

Europa Nostra represents a rapidly growing citizens’ movement for the safeguarding of Europe’s cultural and natural heritage. Its pan-European network is composed of 250 member organisations (heritage associations and foundations with a combined membership of more than 58 million people), 150 associated organisations (governmental bodies, local authorities and corporations) and also 1300 individual members who directly support its mission. In 2013, Europa Nostra celebrated its 50th Anniversary.

Together, the Europa Nostra members form an important lobby for cultural heritage in Europe: they coordinate the European Heritage Alliance 3.3, an informal European sectoral platform composed of 32 networks and organisations active in the wider field of cultural heritage, and the European cooperation project “Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe: Towards an European Index for Valuing Cultural Heritage”, supported by the EU Culture Programme; they celebrate excellence through the annual European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards; they campaign to save Europe’s endangered historic monuments, sites and landscapes. Their last flagship programme of the “7 Most Endangered” sites and monuments in Europe was launched in January 2013, in cooperation with the European Investment Bank Institute as a founding partner.

They are the Voice of Cultural Heritage in Europe. Visit www.europanostra.org

For further info visit www.encatc.org/culturalheritagecountsforeurope
Donwload the Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe report

How do you find out what’s really important in a museum collection? Merel van der Vaart uses co-creation and shares her vision

Co-creation interview series…..the second!

The RICHES project is all about our society’s shifting relationship with culture. The goal? Bringing cultural heritage and people together in an ever-changing Europe and finding new ways of engaging with heritage in a digital world.

Sharing visions

Practically, Waag Society thinks about how museums can present their collections in innovative ways in order to benefit all interested audiences and communities. They use co-creation to start the dialogue with them and come together to create great, new ideas.

The RICHES team began an interview series in which they ask several museums and team members from the project about their perspectives on co-creation within the heritage sector.

Merel van der Vaart has quite a bit of experience with co-creation: first at the science museum in London as an intern and now as a PhD Canditate at the Amsterdam School for Heritage and Memory studies. Currently, she’s working for the Allard Pierson Museum, the archaeology museum of the University of Amsterdam.

An interview about co-creation

Who are you and which museum do you work for?
My name is Merel van der Vaart and I work for the Allard Pierson Museum (University of Amsterdam)

What experience does your museum have with co-creation?
We use co-creation as a collaboration tool in one of the EU funded projects we are part of. It’s a way to help the various project partners with different skill sets work together.

How do you make sure that the results of the co-creation are integrated into the museum?
Everything we’ve made so far was a prototype, so couldn’t be permanently integrated into the museum. But, we hope to change this in the near future.

How would you like to use co-creation in the future?
I would love to run co-creation projects with various (new) audiences, introducing new voices and perspectives. This could be online, as part of an exhibition or projects/events beyond the museum walls.

When would you recommend using co-creation? When would you advise not using co-creation?
Are you truly interested in what others have to say about your collections? Are you willing to give them a stage and support them? Are you prepared to try new things and work outside your comfort zone? Go for it! Don’t do it if you don’t want to share control and ownership.

Are there any co-creation tips you’d like to share with other museums?
Plan to facilitate the process, instead of controlling it. Be open and honest about wishes, perspectives and challenges. Listen, learn and be flexible. Plan and adjust as you go. Give just enough freedom, but not too much. Be part of the team, but don’t lead unless they ask you to.

Keep updated about the outcomes of the co-creation process on the dedicated section of the RICHES website!

SPK Foundation is one of the world’s major cultural organisations and is very active in projects dissemination and international cooperation.

Europeana Space partner SPK: dissemination activities

The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) is one of the key partners of Europeana Space in the sector of Cultural Institutions. SPK is active member of the Museums Pilot, and will host the E-Space final conference in Berlin at the end of the project in 2017.

SPK is a Foundation, is one of the world’s major cultural organisations. The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin), the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (State Library), the Geheimes Staatsarchiv (Secret State Archives), the Ibero-Amerikanisches-
Institut (Ibero-American Institute) and the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung (State Institute for Music Research), all with their origins in the collections and archives of the State of Prussia, are linked to form a close network for cultural transmission.

SPK is also very active in dissemination and international cooperation.

On 2-5 February 2015 took place the NEMO First International Learning Exchange at German Museum Association (GMA) in Berlin, and during the session Annual Museums Statistics in Germany and European Museum Statistics were discussed projects of SPK with E-Space as an example.

Another important event SPK participated in was the Annual Meeting of the German Museum Association at Ruhr Museum at the world heritage site Zeche Zollverein, Essen, on 3-6 May 2015.

More recently, on 18th June 2015 SPK participated in a meeting with official national polish museum institute (Nimoz) at Institute for Museum Research (IfM) in Berlin with exchange of recent project activities of SPK, of course including E-Space as outstanding example. Dissemination about the project was also done at National meeting of German regional Museum Associations, Ethnology Museum (EM) in Berlin, 25th June 2015.

Finally, students of Digital Curation from the Johns Hopkins University of America were invited to learn about the SPK and they were introduced to the SPK activities especially to its participation in EU projects with E-Space as example. The study visit took place on 19 June at Institute for Museum Research (IfM) in Berlin.

Vienna, 9-10 July 2015. E-Space presented its TV pilot and announced its upcoming hackatons and workshops

Europeana Space Jam at Culture Jam 2015

by Kelly Mostert, NISV

At the Europeana Creative “Culture Jam” event, the closing conference of the widely praised Europeana Creative project at the National Library of Austria on July 9th and 10th, the Europeana Space project was brought to the attention of the creative industry scene in Austria. During various sessions the EuropeanaTV pilot was demonstrated and the upcoming hackathons and business modelling workshops were announced.

EuropeanaTV at Culture Jam 2015
The EuropeanaTV pilot was promoted by Kelly Mostert during “Poster Madness!” and through a poster stand in the beautiful ONB reception hall. The poster attracted the attention of several creative entrepreneurs and creative thinkers. Furthermore, during a demonstration session the EuropeanaTV pilot and several apps were demonstrated and explained by Kelly Mostert in the workshop space.

Europeana Space as sister project to Europeana Creative
Gregory Markus held a talk in the main conference room on the closing day of the conference to talk about E-Space, its relation to the Europeana Creative project and how the project intends to tackle incubation of the creative concepts that come out of it. The talk was well received and Europeana Space definitely gained more spotlight as the Europeana Creative project comes to a close and E-Space remains to continue the efforts of finding new ways for sustainable and marketable creative re-use of digitised cultural heritage material.

Read more about the highlights of Creative Culture Jam 2015:

Link to the ONB blog
Link to the NISV blog

Developing a common framework of CH-related terms, definitions and explanation

Released the RICHES Taxonomy policy brief

Seattle Library, internal framework (Wikimedia commons)

As cultural heritage (CH) institutions are rethinking and remaking themselves, shifting from traditional to renewed practices of CH representation and promotion, using new technologies and digital facilities, new meanings associated with terms such as “preservation”, “digital library” or “virtual performance” emerge every day. With the absence of a common Taxonomy in Europe, a variety of definitions of these CH-related concepts are shared and used interchangeably, making the task of research and recognition difficult.

The new RICHES policy brief, published on the project website under the title “RICHES Taxonomy of cultural heritage definitions”, presents evidence and recommendations emerging from the research undertaken to develop the RICHES Taxonomy of terms, concepts and definitions, which aims to: ensure appropriate academic, professional and technical standards for research are met in identifying, analysing and understanding both existing ways and new models for defining CH and CH practices; develop a common CH language to serve the interests of the wider CH community, including policy-makers, cultural ministries of member states, regional, national and state authorities, public administrations, European institutions and researchers and professionals generally. This policy brief aims to consider whether CH communities have a clear understanding and a coherent framework to use when addressing social and cultural issues, including technical, organisational, legal, economic and educational issues and the question of standards and audit/certification. The RICHES Taxonomy addresses the rise of new CH concepts, considering their multiple dimensions and their meanings, which can vary and shift in unpredictable and unexpected ways. RICHES has acknowledged that there is currently a genuine lack of a clear, shared understanding of what CH is, how it is interpreted and communicated differently in the digital age and what questions it should be seeking to answer for the future. The Taxonomy has been developed in response to the emergence of new terms and concepts that are used in the context of CH in contemporary European society. Of particular significance in this respect is the way digital environments have impacted upon the management, interpretation, communication, preservation and reception of CH (for instance, terms such as “digital archiving”, “digital curation” and “digital preservation” are now commonly used).

Download the RICHES Taxonomy policy brief (PDF)

Two policy briefs by the RICHES project published on the official website of the European Commission

RICHES’ policy briefs in the e-Library of the EC

“RICHES Taxonomy of cultural heritage definitions”. “Digital Copyright Framework. The move from analogue to digital and new forms of IPR”. These the titles of the two policy briefs produced by the RICHES project and recently published by the European Commission (EC), in the e-Library of the Social Sciences and Humanities section of the Directorate General Research and Innovation.
«Getting policy insights at a glance, discovering thought-provoking results and comparisons in Europe, checking quickly a methodology. This is why the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) programme publishes policy briefs: to communicate research results in a structured way in only a few pages». So the EC clarifies its concrete objective of “disseminating research success through policy”. Objective pursued by RICHES too, whose papers (policy papers, foresight studies and recommendations) are conceived as evidence-based resources into which the main research outputs produced by the project are distilled. These practical resources are intended to provide support and advice to decision-makers at all levels, including policy makers, programme owners, cultural managers, public administrators and private entrepreneurs.

The first mentioned policy brief (RICHES Taxonomy of cultural heritage definitions) presents evidence and recommendations emerging from the research undertaken to develop the project’s “Taxonomy of terms, concepts and definitions”, which aims to: ensure appropriate academic, professional and technical standards for research are met in identifying, analysing and understanding both existing ways and new models for defining cultural heritage (CH) and cultural heritage practices; develop a common CH language to serve the interests of the wider CH community, including policy-makers, cultural ministries of member states, regional, national and state authorities, public administrations, European institutions and researchers and professionals generally.
The second one (Digital Copyright Framework. The move from analogue to digital and new forms of IPR) describes how European policy-makers and European CH institutions should develop European copyright policies and strategies for the CH sector using the rights to culture and cultural rights as guiding principles. The impact is to lay emphasis on inter alia access to culture, cultural integrity and cultural communication and to develop ways in which copyright can support those goals.

The documents are available also on the website of RICHES, which has other policy papers in the works…so stay tuned on www.riches-project.eu!

Visit the EC e-library

To promote the use and quality check of common standards for text digitisation and long term preservation.

MoU signed with Impact Centre of Competence in digitisation

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between PREFORMA and the Impact Centre of Competence in digitisation for the promotion and presentation of the respective results and for the organisation of joint events and other activities, focusing in particular on the use and quality check of common standards for text digitisation and long term preservation.

PREFORMA (www.preforma-project.eu) is a Pre-Commercial Procurement project co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the FP7 ICT Programme (Grant Agreement 612789) with the aim to address the challenge of implementing good quality standardised file formats for preserving data content in the long term and to give memory institutions full control of the process of the conformity tests of files to be ingested into archives.

IMPACT Centre of Competence in digitisation (http://digitisation.eu) is a not for profit organisation with the mission to make the digitisation of historical printed text “better, faster, cheaper”. It provides tools, services and facilities to further advance the state-of-the-art in the field of document imaging, language technology and the processing of historical text.

First public prototype of veraPDF’s validation software released

veraPDF consortium issues first public software release

The first public prototype of veraPDF’s validation software has been released. The software can be downloaded at: http://downloads.verapdf.org/rel/veraPDF-library-GUI-0.2.0.zip.

veraPDF is developing the definitive open source, file-format validator for all parts and conformance levels of ISO 19005 (PDF/A). The software is designed to meet the needs of memory institutions responsible for preserving digital content for the long term. The project is led by the Open Preservation Foundation and the PDF Association and is supported by leading members of the PDF software development community through their Technical Working Group.

This initial public release of veraPDF’s software is incomplete, and is not to be used as a validator; it is currently more a proof of concept than a usable file format validator. The release notes are published at: https://github.com/veraPDF/veraPDF-library/releases/latest

veraPDF’s website is now up at http://verapdf.org/. The site contains information on the project’s software and roadmap, the team behind it, and how you can get involved.

If you’d like to keep up to date with veraPDF’s progress, and be among the first to find out when new software is available sign up to our email list: http://verapdf.org/subscribe/.

About

The veraPDF consortium is a unique collaboration, bringing together an end user community of digital preservationists and a software industry rooted in the principle of interoperability based on ISO standardised technology to develop the definitive conformance checker for PDF/A. veraPDF is funded by the PREFORMA project.

PREFORMA

(PREservation FORMAts for culture information/e-archives) is a Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) project co-funded by the European Commission under its FP7-ICT Programme.

Derry-Londonderry, 11-20 September 2015

CultureTECH: Northern Ireland’s Innovation Festival

This year, CultureTECH festival is being held on 11-20 September 2015.
The event takes place each September in Derry-Londonderry. Every year the organisers work closely with a variety of partners who help design the programme. The festival is open access, so there’s room for anyone who wants to go and get involved!

First edition in 2012 was organised in a little over 4 months and focused on industry with a fringe of public facing events; it lasted 3 and a half days and attracted around 8.000 people.
For 2013, the CultureTECH team decided to up the ante in line with Derry’s term as the inaugural UK City of Culture. They ran for a full week, shifted the focus to incorporate more public events and carried out their first “Junior” programme for schools. Around 24.000 people attended, including 8.000 students.
2014 was undoubtedly the best event to date, attracting over 43.000 attendees across 200+ events hosted by 134 partner organisations. The festival brought the education strand into the main fold of the programme (with 16.000 students taking part) and shifted even further towards a family-friendly programme that encourages everyone to get hands-on with technology. Highlights included an enormous Minecraft event, a conference designed and delivered by young people, a HD video dome, Friday Night Mashup, DANI Awards and the launch of the NW Regional Science Park.

For 2015 (Sept 11-20), CultureTECH has even more ambitious plans. The festival is now squarely aimed at an audience of young people and families and the team is planning for in excess of 60.000 people. They are partnering with the BBC’s Make It Digital for a huge public engagement programme, they will host CoderDojo’s annual global conference and will crank up the volume on their gaming events. Attendees can expect 5 industry conferences and Ireland’s largest Maker exhibition.

For more info visit the Culture TECH website