Digital meets Culture

A panel of international speakers discussed about digital cultural heritage and its potential for exploitation and education

Conference about “Use, Re-use and Access”, prestigious event in Dublin

Chairs and speakers of the International Conference

An international conference ‘Use, Re-Use and Access’ was held in Dublin Castle on 17 June 2013. Hosted by the Irish Presidency of the European Union and Linked Heritage partner the Local Government Management Agency, the conference attracted an international audience of cultural heritage and memory institutions and numerous representatives of Irish local and national memory institutions.

Mr. Fergus O’Dowd, T.D., Minister of State, Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government

The conference was opened by Irish Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Fergus O’Dowd, TD, who spoke enthusiastically of his own experience in using the internet for family history and local studies research. The Minister expressed strong support for the re-use of cultural and heritage information in education and research.

Delegates in St. George’s Hall, Dublin Castle, watching a video address from Mrs. Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission

The Minister’s address was followed by a video message from Commissioner Neelie Kroes (see the full video message here), who unfortunately was unable to attend the Conference in person. Commissioner Kroes emphasized the importance of an open approach to information sharing, and highlighted the role of Europeana.

The conference continued with a series of exciting presentations, addressing complementary aspects of the digitization and subsequent re-use of cultural heritage material from around Europe, including:

– Javier Hernandez-Ros, the Head of Unit ‘Creativity’ at the Commission, focused on the challenges and opportunities for digital culture. He also outlined the budgetary constraints for culture in the coming EU programmes (download the presentation in PDF).

– Prof Jon Drori, UK national expert, gave an insightful presentation on the strategic pitfalls which can befall digital cultural projects, and offered 15 Golden Rules for avoiding them (download the presentation in PDF).

– Frederic Bokobza of the French Ministry of Culture outlined the French national investment program, which, despite the financial constraints on public spending, is establishing a spectrum of large digitization public-private partnerships, with strong focus on long-term return on investment (download the presentation in PDF).

– Lord David Puttnam, Digital Ambassador for Ireland (keynote speaker) spoke extensively on the exciting prospects for education. A particular emphasis was placed on the importance of opening access to cultural assets for re-use, and avoiding unnecessary restrictions (download the presentation in PDF).

– Prof Sara de Freitas presented the work of the Serious Games Institute at the University of Coventry, particularly those games and artefacts that relate most closely to cultural heritage (download the presentation in PDF).

– Rossella Caffo, Director of ICCU, Italy, presented the work of Linked Heritage and its achievements (download the presentation in PDF).

– Paul McSweeney of the Irish Local Government Management Agency gave an overview of Irish digital culture portal Askaboutireland.ie, including practical examples of geo-enabled cultural heritage material and user-generated content (download the presentation in PDF).

– Finally, Ciaran Clissmann, Linked Heritage partner, surveyed recent web and smartphone developments in the mainstream, and how they can offer appealing approaches to solving persistent digitization challenges (download the presentation in PDF).

l-r Ms. Annette Kelly, Head of Libraries Development, LGMA; Lord Puttnam, Digital Ambassador for Ireland; Ms. Margaret Hayes, Dublin City Librarian

Conference attendees provided feedback to the speakers in active question and answer sessions. Fruitful and interesting conversations focused on education, re-use, relevant web developments and the potential for cultural tourism. Thanks were expressed by all presenters and participants to the hosting organisations.

[Show as slideshow]

An initiative for cooperation between China and Europe, supported by company Promoter

Chinese cultural artifacts that are in Europe go back, digitally, to China

Loy Soo Choon (Amber Digital Solutions) explains the process used for the 3D reconstruction.

The idea is actually very simple. Many museums and institutions in Europe hold Chinese collections including artifacts and potteries, that hardly most of Chinese people could ever see. Now digital technologies can help, through very advanced 3D reconstructions to be used for virtual and travelling exhibitions that will bring the Chinese cultural artifacts held in Europe back home as 3D objects.

This is an initiative of the technological branch of Chasen Sino-Sin and related company Amber Digital, sponsored by an important group of Chinese corporations and enterprises, that are seeking in Europe for the museums and institutions that hold Chinese collection to offer them a zero-cost, advanced 3D digitization service.

Company Promoter, well known and trusted player in the European landscape of digital cultural heritage, is supporting the operation as cultural mediator.

It is a very recent news the signature of the agreement protocol with the Hallwyl Museum in Stockholm for the digitization of its Chinese collection, to be done in spring 2014.

Zhao Feng (CEO of Amber Digital Solutions), Antonella Fresa (Director of Promoter srl), Åsa Marnell (Head of collections of the Hallwyl museum) and Karin Nilsson (Head of digital resources of the Hallwyl museum).

The phisical artifacts will never move from their place while the Chinese technicians and engineers, in cooperation with in-site curators, will digitize them. When the 3D scanning is complete, the Chinese experts will reproduce the full texture of the 3D model. The result is a perfect 3D digital reproduction of the original artifact, ready to be used for digital exhibitions and even 3D printing to reproduce physical copies of the originals to accompany the digital exhibitions or to be on sale in the museum shops.

The concept and exchange is very simple and plain: the museum keeps the full property of the digital objects for any purpose and exploitation, while the Chinese company is licensed to the re-use the 3D models in China for educational and research purposes, and for virtual exhibitions.

Heli Haapasalo (Director of the Hallwyl museum), Åsa Marnell (Head of collections of the Hallwyl museum), Zhao Feng (CEO of the Amber Digital Solutions) follow with interest the presentation about the 3D solution by Loy Soo Choon (Amber Digital Solutions).

It is a win-win agreement: from one hand, it is very convenient for the museum, which will not pay for the digitization service; from the other hand it is an opportunity for the Chinese partners who will be able to show and to study artifacts of their culture otherwise no more accessible in their country.

Discussion is ongoing with other Swedish institutions that have Chinese holdings, but of course this initiative is not limited to Sweden and it is expected to be enlarged to other European cultural institutions in the near future.

a new publication developed within the activities of the Linked Heritage project

Geocoded Digital Cultural Content

This new book Geocoded Digital Cultural Content, edited by Franc J. Zakrajsek and Vlasta Vodeb (with a foreword curated by Antonella Fresa) focuses on Geographic location, which is a very important attribute of a cultural heritage item. The authors investigate here the possibilities and approaches regarding the use of e-infrastructure in geo-coded digital culture.

Scheme: The INDICATE project as a bridge between GIS, cultural content and e-infrastructure

This work is a result of a strong cooperation between LINKED HERITAGE project (Coordination of Standards and Technologies for the enrichment of Europeana) and the INDICATE project (International Network for a Digital Cultural Heritage e-Infrastructure), a concluded European Union FP7 project which aimed to establish a network of common interest made up of experts and researchers in the field of e-infrastructures and digital cultural heritage at Euro Mediterranean level.

The geo-coding of cultural content is becoming a very promising technique which is opening new scenarios of exploitation and valorisation of the European heritage. Many applications have been developed and are used in the cultural tourism, teaching, learning research domains. This publication is the result of a wide range of studies, experiments and investigations carried out in the frame of several national and European initiatives in the last year.

This document is an extract distilled from the case study on Geocoded Digital Cultural Content and associated workshop held in Ljubljana, which is published in cooperation with the LINKED HERITAGE, because of the high-interest demonstrated by the cultural institutions about the use and application of the GIS technologies to their digital repositories.

Download the publication here (PDF)

Helsinki, 30th September - 1st October 2013

VAMP2013

TERENA and SURFnet has organized the second VAMP workshop on September 30th & October 1st, 2013 in Helsinki, Finland.

Goal of VAMP2013 was to foster the deployment of identity management and collaboration tools within the research communities. The organisers invited IT architects of international Research Communities, identity federations and providers of (collaborative) infrastructures for research to participate in this interactive workshop.

Workshop

The design of the workshop was to provide:

structured presentations on exemplar deployments within specific Research Communities, as well as
open discussions for Research Communities architects and infrastructure experts to share use cases, best practices, infrastructural solutions, etc.

VAMP2013 sequels VAMP2012. Participants has known about the latest developments in identity federation support for Research Communities, how they can (and cannot) use identity federation, what are the experiences of Research Communities with collaborative infrastructures, and what tools are available for strengthening collaboration.

Proceedings and results of the International meeting will be published ont the VAMP2013 website at http://www.terena.org/activities/vamp/ws2/

FIM4R & REFEDS

VAMP2013 was organised in conjunction with the FIM4R (Oct 2,organised by ELIXIR Finland) and REFEDs (Oct 2 & 3, organised by TERENA) meetings.

DCH-RP

DCH-RP Project attended the meeting and its representative, Marco Fargetta from INFN, took a presentation on “Federated access to e-Infrastructures worldwide”

Download the abstract here

eCSG is a standard-based web 2.0 demonstrative platform

The DCH-RP e-Culture Science Gateway joins IDEM and eduGAIN

The DCH-RP e-Culture Science Gateway has been registered as a Service Provider of the Italian identity federation IDEM* and, through it, to the eduGAIN** identity inter-federation. This means that everybody belonging to the eduGAIN member countries (see the image below) and holding federated credentials can be authenticated to access and use the e-Culture Science Gateway.

eduGAIN member countries

IDEM* (federated IDEntity Management for service access) frees reasearchers, teachers and students from managing their multiple credentials necessary to access web services.

The eduGAIN** service is intended to enable the trustworthy exchange of information related to identity, authentication and authorisation between the GÉANT (GN3plus) Partners’ federations. The eduGAIN service will deliver this through co-ordinating elements of the federations’ technical infrastructure and a policy framework controlling the exchange of this information. The initial goal is to enable Pan-European Web Single Sign On (Web SSO) to both GÉANT services and to those provided by other communities represented by, or associated with, the GN3plus Partners.

More information:

http://ecsg.dch-rp.eu

http://www.idem.garr.it

http://www.edugain.org

Adobe Connect Virtual Room, 24 June 2013

Webinar on the DCH-RP e-Culture Science Gateway

The general architecture of the DCH-RP e-Culture Science Gateway (e-CSG) and its web-based and mobile app implementations are the subjects ot this webinar which is organised by the DCH-RP project and also supported by the European Grid Infrastructure. Live demonstrations about how to access and use the e-CSG, both as end-user and repository manager, will be provided.

Webinar access page: http://connect.ct.infn.it/dch-rp

Agenda: http://agenda.ct.infn.it/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=936

Useful links:

Instructions to register and sign in on the e-CSG

e-CSG mobile app page on Google Play

Dates: 24 June 2013 (16:00-18:00)

Timezone: Europe/Rome

Location: Adobe Connect Virtual Room: http://connect.ct.infn.it/dch-rp

Chairs: Roberto Barbera

Instructions:

Please login as guest and provide your Name and Affiliation in the Guest Name field. In the top left corner you can then click on “Meeting -> Audio Setup Wizard” to configure your audio. You can test your computer and your devices at this link: http://connect.ct.infn.it/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm. Adobe Connect tutorials are available at: http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-adobe-connect-8/.

24.04.- 25.04.2013

IT&MEDIA 2013 Darmstadt, Germany

IT&MEDIA 2013 is a trade fair and conference for the digital enterprise. The fair will take place at science city Darmstadt, Germany.

Website

link to venue

06.-08.02.2013

7th Consortium Meeting Vienna, Austria

The 7th HarmoSearch consortium meeting take place in Vienna, Austria and is organized by [x+o]

06.-07.02.2013

Salon Bedouk Paris Expo – Portes de Versailles

As the premier exhibition for MICE offers in France – Bedouk Exhibition will enable you to promote your savoir-faire, your products and your identity to qualified buyers. The main sectors of the Business Tourism and event industry will be represented. Join one of the 4 exhibition zones:

Event agencies and Suppliers
Destinations
Hotels and Hotel Chains
Event Venues

Website

22-25.01. 2013

ENTER2013 eTourism Conference, Innsbruck Austria

Organized by the International Federation for Information Technology and Travel & Tourism (IFITT), ENTER 2013 offers a worldwide and unique forum for attendees from academia, industry, government, and other organizations to actively exchange, share, and challenge state-of-the-art research and industrial case studies on the application of information and communication technologies to travel and tourism.

Conference Website