Maria Śliwińska, ICIMSS (Wisła November 9 th 2006

Vision Launching a European online service (A European Culture Portal) to enable the European cultural heritage to be promoted to a worldwide audience

Europe’s cultural heritage Digital content from museums, libraries, archives, galleries and other sources from across Europe accessible in multiple languages for people to use and enjoy

Investing in digitisation Since the 1990s: Across Europe State and local authority programmes invested in the digitisation of cultural collections from across the sectors, involving thousands of cultural institutions and private organisations. Identified the need for a way of promoting access to the richness and diversity of our collections Building a diverse digital offer

Revealing collections MINERVA WP3 work on inventories lead to –Specifications for inventories of digitised content –Agreed by NRG –Based on international standards and main inventory projects across Europe  Catalogue des fonds culturels numérisés in France and the SDX platform

MICHAEL project - beginnings MICHAEL project: Funded by the eTEN programme Began June 2004 France, Italy and the UK –33 m euros National investment in digitisation –3.3 m euros from the EU Ministries of Culture in France and Italy Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, UK with Dédale, Amitié and AJLSM

MICHAEL Plus eTEN funding Extends MICHAEL to 11 new countries 32 partners 24 months Started 1 st June 2006

MICHAEL Plus MICHAELplus partner countries: –the Czech Republic –Finland –Germany –Greece –Hungary –Malta –the Netherlands –Poland –Portugal –Spain –Sweden

MICHAEL Plus Partners  Belgium: Menon  Czech Republic: Ministerstvo Kultury  Finland: Helsinki University UH.HUL  Finland: Kansallisarkisto  Finland: Museovirasto  Germany: SPK  Germany: Bundesarchiv  Germany: Bayerische SB  Germany: Deusche Nationalbibliothek  Germany: Deutsches Museum  Germany: Landesarchiv BW  Germany: Senckenbergische Gesellsch.  Greece: ICCS-NTUA  Greece: Elliniko Ypourgeio Politismou  Hungary: Nemzeti Kulturális Örökség Minisztériuma  Hungary: Informatikai és Hírközlési Minisztérium  Hungary: Neumann  Italy: IBACN  Malta: Heritage Malta  Malta: Across Limits  Netherlands: Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap  Netherlands: Koninklijke Bibliotheek  Poland: Ministerstwo Spraw WiA  Poland: ICIMSS  Portugal: MC Segretaria-Geral  Spain: Biblioteca Nacional de España  Sweden: Uppsala University  UK: MLA  France: MCC  France: Dédale  Italy: MiBAC  Italy: Amitié

MICHAEL A common approach for digital cultural heritage inventories A tool for revealing digital collections Supports multilingualism Project’s website:

A distributed platform Open source software National instances with national databases Sharing metadata to contribute to European services

TECHNOLOGY USED A production module allows users to create, modify, import and manage records that describe aspects of the digital cultural heritage. All of these functions are available using a standard Web browser. Data is stored using a powerful and flexible XML database, which is based on the MICHAEL data model. A publication module provides an intuitive interface to enable end- users to search with their Web browser. This module uses an XML search and display engine, which can be customized to allow institutions to adapt the interface to meet their particular needs.

TECHNOLOGY USED Open source software Apache Cocoon: an XML infrastructure for complex Web applications. Cocoon provides services such as a robust catching mechanism, XSLT transformations, a server-side scripting environment and a flexible environment for building Web forms, used for data creation and modification; eXIST an XML database management system. The database can be accessed by different standard protocols, such as WebDAV, XMLRPC and the xmldb protocol directly from a Cocoon environment.

TECHNOLOGY USED Xdepo: a Cocoon environment to manage data stored in an XML database using Web forms. Xdepo provides the link between Cocoon, eXist and the Web browser for the MICHAEL platform production module Using Java technologies, the MICHAEL platform can be deployed on wide variety of systems. SDX: a search engine for large collections of XML documents. Based on the stable and largely used Apache Lucene search engine, SDX provides an easy tool to use API to build search and display services for XML documents, in a Cocoon environment.

Implementations in France, Italy and the UK National strategies for data collection underway Public interfaces now being launched! Implemention started in the 11 MICHAELplus countries Progress Prototype of the European service to be launched at MICHAEL international conference (Rome, December 4th- 5th 2006)

MICHAEL International Conference “Museums, Libraries and Archives Online” - Rome, December 4th-5th

European Services Content will be harvested from each of the 14 partner countries A simple search interface Supports multiple languages Gives easy and quick access to content from trusted sources

New opportunities MICHAEL services will open up access to the digital cultural heritage for people –in their homes –in schools, colleges and universities –in public libraries and online centres

Diversity and access Case studies Using MICHAEL a teacher will be able to –access a rich diversity of cultural heritage resources from across Europe –use online resources in the curriculum –promote cultural diversity and –increase digital skills and competences of children in the class

Diversity and access Case studies Through MICHAEL a mother will be able to –plan a visit to a museum –finding offline resources –to enjoy with her child –promoting learning

Diversity and access Case studies Using MICHAEL a tourist is able to –learn about places online –plan an itinerary for her holiday and –to learn more when she returns home