Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisation The MINERVA project: a European network for promoting culture through the web Rossella CaffoLisbon, 11 May 2004

The eEurope initiative started on December 1999 to foster the internet and new economy development across Europe and allow the citizens to participate to the information society. Member States and the European Commission were invited to define coordination mechanisms for digitisation policies and programmes. The MINERVA framework: eEurope

The MINERVA framework: the Lund principles The European Commission organised on 4th April 2001 in Lund a meeting of experts and representatives from Member States to to accomplish coordination mechanisms of digitisation policies and programmes across Europe. The Lund Principles and the Lund Action Plan are the results of the convention.

The European culture can be freely accessible through the digitisation of cultural content. This will also support and promote the cultural difference in a global scenario. The MINERVA framework: the Lund principles

The European Commission asked to Member States to officially nominate national representatives for digitisation. All the people appointed are the National Representatives Group – NRG. The MINERVA framework: the NRG

MINERVA MINERVA is the operative section of the NRG Project funded by the EC ib the frame of IST (5th Framework Programme) Implement the Lund Action Plan MINERVA is a network of all the 15 Member States’ ministries. Italy coordinates the project.

MINERVA Goals:  To discuss, correlate and harmonise activities carried out in digitisation of cultural content to promote awareness and exchange of experiences at European level  Creation of a common European platform made up of recommendations and guidelines about digitisation, standards, long-term accessibility and preservation quality of cultural web sites.  Coordinate the national programmes  Enlargement the network  Cooperate with other projects acting in the field of digitisation  Sustainability of the network

Enlargement of the network: MINERVA Plus MINERVAplus is the extension of the project to the countries that joined the European Union in May 2004, Russia and Israel. The project started on 2nd February 2004

Impact of the network MINERVA has demonstrated to have contributed to the creation of a broad consensus at institutional level onthe importance of promoting the European culture trhough the web. The NRG activated a mechanisn of unfailing institutional cooperation among the Presidencies of the Council of the European Unione. MINERVA affected the national digitisation prorammes carried on by some member States such as Belgium, France, Italy and Sweden.

The results The Charter of Parma The Progress Report The Good practices handbook The handbook for quality in cultural web sites The Technical guidelines Training The cluster MinervaPLUS MICHAEL and the Portal of culture

The Charter of Parma During the conference Quality in cultural Web sites (Parma November 2003), event of the Italian Presidency, was introduced the Charter of Parma, a shared programme adopted by the NRG that strengthen the Lund Principles that are its background.

Articles – Intelligent use of new technologies 2 – Accessibility 3 – Quality 4 – IPR and privacy 5 – Interoperability and standards

Articles – Inventories and multilingualism 7 – Benchmarking 8 – Cooperation at national, European and International levels 9 – Enlargement 10 - Building the future together: at the forefront of the knowledge society

The Progress Report The Progress Report of the NRG has the objective of promoting digitisation policies, programmes and projects in the field of cultural heritage carried on by Member States. The updating 2003 is forthcoming and includes also the contributions of newly accession states, Israel and Russia.

Good practices handbook A practical handbook to the establishment, execution and management of digitisation projects. Target: teams within and across cultural institutions who are contemplating, or are already executing, digitisation projects. Foreword: the research undertaken all over Europe, enriched with the existing guidelines on digitisation and presented at NRG meeting in Alicante, May 2002.

Good practices: the new campaign MINERVA launched a new campaign of good practices and competence centres collection to implement the MINERVA knowledge base. The submission forms are available at the URL orkinggroups/goodpract.htm and can be sent to the address orkinggroups/goodpract.htm

The quality handbook Goal: exploiting the possibilities of the web communication in the filed of the cultural heritage Key steps : Brussels Quality Framework, (December 2001, during the Belgian Presidency) MINERVA WP5 activity, Identification of user needs, content and quality framework for common access points Ongoing activity : the italian version of the handbook is going to be tested on the web sites of public and private institutions.A light version is under preparation

Cultural web site quality principles A quality cultural website celebrates European cultural diversity by providing access for all to digital cultural content. A quality website must be: transparent - effective - maintained - accessible – user centred - responsive - multilingual - interoperable - managed - preserved

Technical Guidelines for digital cultural content creation programmes Based on the activities carried out by NOF and elaborated together with PULMAN, EMII-DCF and ERPANET Thought for decision makers and managers of digitisation programmes and projects Foster the development of interoperable content taking also into account the long term preservation issues.

The training courses A programme of training courses that uses open distance learning methodologies has been set up to diffuse the results of the project. Action lines: 1.MINERVA technical guidelines 2.digitisation: process, cataloguing and management, including metadata for the preservation; 3. legal aspects: IPR/copyright and data protection; 4. quality: criteria for design and development of cultural Web sites; 5. management of projects and services.

The cluster MINERVA organised two meetings of the European cultural networks (Rome, 30 October 2003 and Florence 31 March 2004) with the aim of creating a European common research area. As a result was defined the Rome agenda. Networks involved: BRICKS, CALIMERA, DELOS, DIGICULT, EMII-DCF, EPOCH, ERPANET, EUROMED HERITAGE II, EVA, HEREIN, SCRAN, MINERVA, MUSICNETWORK, PRESTOSPACE

MinervaPLUS working groups: specific topics Inventories & multilingualism> multilingual thesauri Interoperability, Service Provision & IPR> business models for digitisation programmes Quality & User requirements>small cultural institutions requirements Good Practices & Competence Centres>cost reduction for cultural digitisation

The prototype A prototype of portal for the digitised collection of Italy and France was produced by the efforts of the WP3 Multilingual seach Based on an open source platform Background of MICHAEL

MICHAEL MICHAEL ( Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe ) is a project presented by the MiBAC in the framework of the eTEN programme. MICHAEL will establish an international online service, to search, browse and examine multiple national cultural portals (starting with France, Italy, and UK) from a single point of access and using open source softwares.

National Multilingual Portal for cultural, tourism and productive resoureces The Italian ministry for Cultural Heritage and activities launched the National Multilingual Portal for cultural, tourism and productive resources, an initiative elaborated thanks to the cooperation among different ministries in order to promote the exploitation of the cultural heritage and the services deriving from it. This project will make use of the technological European platform elaborated by MINERVA, made up with standards, recommendations and guidelines, and be undertaken in accordance to the results of MICHAEL too.

The NRG sustainability Due to the success achieved in term of impact on the institutions, the NRG is defining a long term sustainability strategy through the implementation of all the concrete results of MINERVA, realising on the bases of the European platform of technical guidelines and standards elaborated by MINERVA services for small and medium cultural institutions

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