1. Beijing, Peking University Digital Cultural Heritage workshop
DC-NET & INDICATE
And e-infrastructure for the digital cultural heritage
Antonella FRESA
Technical Coordinator 1

2. Table of content Cultural Heritage sector: characteristics and needs
Overview of
DC-NET ERA-NET
INDICATE COORDINATION ACTION
The vision
Sustainability
Joint Programming Initiative

3. Digital cultural content
The amount of digitised material in the European Cultural sector is growing very rapidly
National, regional and European programmes support the digitisation of the content of Museums, Libraries, Archives, Archaeological sites and Audiovisual repositories
The generation of digital cultural heritage is accelerated also by the impulse of Europeana that is fostering the European cultural institutions to produce even more digital content
Digital cultural heritage content are distributed, complex and interlinked through many relations

4. What the resulting data need
high quality information technology management (to ensure trust, availability, reliability, long term safety of content, security, preservation and sustainability);
access facilities offered to the final users who will search into the DCH e-Infrastructure for their research and to the cultural institutions that will deliver their data to the DCH e-Infrastructure;
interoperation of cultural heritage data with non-cultural heritage data and other research data.

5. Two complementary initiatives
INDICATE Use case studies & pilots
DC-NET Joint programming

6. DC-NET ERA-NET A Network for the European Research Area:
To establish common perspectives & priorities across the digital cultural heritage and e-Infrastructures communities in Europe,
To identify constraints and capabilities in order to establish a plan of joint activities
Started in December 2009, it will last until June 2012
A project funded by EC FP7 e-Infrastructures

7. DC-NET Partners: 9 Ministries from 9 EU countries
Italy: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali - Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico (the Coordinator)
Belgium: Politique scientifique fédérale/Federaal Wetenschapsbeleid (BELSPO/STIS)
Estonia: Eesti Vabariigi Kultuuriministeerium
France: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication – Département de la Recherche de l’enseignement supérieur et de la technologie
Greece: Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού [Hellenic Ministry of Culture]
Hungary: Oktatási Kulturális Minisztérium (Ministry of National Resources)
Slovenia: Ministrstvo za Kulturo Slovenia
Sweden: Riksarkivet (*)
Latvia: Valst Agentura Kulturas Informacijas Sistemas (new partner)
(*) Partner delegated by the Ministry of Culture

8. DC-NET overall plan
to establish a dialogue between the Cultural Heritage, the ICT and the e-Infrastructures (working groups, international conferences & publications)
to explore how e-Infrastructures can add value to the research in the digital cultural heritage and to anticipate a range of advanced services (focused seminars and workshops)
to develop and endorse a Joint Activitiees Plan (commitment from the stakeholders)

9. DC-NET Project Plan Management & governance Network of common interest
Joint Activities Plan
e-Infrastructure awareness
New service priorities
Technical validation
Dissemination

10. Result at the time DC-NET managed to achieve the following results:
it is well positioned in the political scenario
it has established liaisons and cooperation with the e-Infrastructure providers
it has agreed on a list of priority services
Services for content providers and online data resources
Services to enhance the content itself
Services for content consumers and end users 10

11. Priority services
A prioritised list of the most immediately important services
Long-term preservation
Persistent identifiers
Interoperability and Aggregation
Advanced search
Data resource set-up
User authentication and access control
IPR and digital rights management

12. DC-NET - Future actions
The Digital Cultural Heritage is a growing Community committed toward the implementation of a stable infrastructure
Technical validation:
how each service priority is addressed by the existing e-infrastructures facilities
Feasibility assessment
Training and information seminars
The Joint Activities Plan 12

13. INDICATE Coordination Action
INDICATE is targeted to the Mediterranean region
It includes the exploration of international opportunities of joint activities
Research field: e-infrastructure for the digital cultural heritage
Started on the 1st September 2010 will last 2 years

14. INDICATE Partners
Italy: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali - Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico (coordinator)
Italy: Consotium GARR
Italy: COMETA
France: Ministère de la Culture e la Communication
Greece: Nationa Technical Univrsity of Athens
Spain: I2CAT
Slovenia: Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage
Egypt: CULTNAT
Jordan: Department of Antiquities
Turkey: Ministry of Culture and Tourism

15. DC-NET and INDICATE
INDICATE
DC-NET
1/12/2009
1/9/2010
31/05/2012
31/8/2012
The two projects run in parallel for about 1 and half year.
They have partners in common:
ICCU and MCC
NTUA and AAS that provide technological support the DC-NET partners from Greece and Slovenia
GARR and COMETA that participate to the DC-NET working groups
The programmes idenitified in DC-NET will be used for the sustainability of the results of INDICATE.
Rossella CAFFO, ICCU

16. INDICATE focus
Developing common understanding and awareness of the new challenges opened by the use of the e-infrastructures in the cultural domain
Creating new research communities and studying new policies of access
Stimulating the international cooperation of networks of e-Infrastructures providers and users in the Mediterranean region, a mission to China in cooperation with the EPIKH Grid School

17. INDICATE concept Two key issues:
1. To explore the coordination of cultural heritage research opportunities opened by e-Infrastructures
2.To address the need for consistent policies governing such research.
The approach:
sharing best practice and experience
to produce usable guidelines and recommendations

18. INDICATE Project plan

19. Pilots and case studies
E-Infrastructure-enabled semantic search for cultural repositories
E-Infrastructure-enabled e-Collaborative Digital Archive (based on Grid e-infrastructure)
3 Case studies
Digital preservation
Virtual exhibitions
Geocoded digital cultural content
Rossella CAFFO, ICCU 19

20. Digital Preservation The INDICATE questionnaire:
We would like to invite the Chinese cultural institutions to participate to the questionnaire
Workshop in Ankara on 7-8 July 2011
Best practice report for publications (September 2011)
Kick-off meeting
9-10 September 2010
Rossella CAFFO, ICCU 20

21. The INDICATE questionnaire on preservation
Information about the respondent
Policies for preservation
Technical information about the solutions adopted/developed
Standards, metadata, formats
Storage backup
Planing and conclusions
Kick-off meeting
9-10 September 2010
Rossella CAFFO, ICCU 21

22. INDICATE - Strategies and future plans
To discuss e-infrastructure access policies in the participating countries
To study the varying rates of the e-Infrastructures development
To share knowledge and preparing for harmonisation
To facilitate cross-border R&D and innovation initiatives

23. DCH Network of common interest
To establish a network of researchers and experts in e-Infrastructures and cultural heritage
To foster the dialog among different actors and different countries which are not used to work together
Sharing knowledge of applicable standards
To work on a long-term basis and to continue beyond the individual projects life-time

24. Target audience and Stakeholders
Cultural heritage organisations (museums, libraries, archives and Ministries of Culture)
International associations of memory institutions (e.g., NEMO, EMF, ICOM, EBLIDA, CENL, …)
E-Infrastructures providers (NREN, Grid, etc.)
Ministries and state agencies who are responsible for e-Infrastructures
International Policy bodies for the research infrastructures (eIRG, ESFRI)
Research organisations (universities, private and public research centres)
Other projects in the digital culture and in the e-Infrastructures

25. The vision
To implement a seamless data and services infrastructure for the research of the cultural heritage virtual community, which provides key services such as:
preservation and backup,
authentication and data integrity,
collaborative research environments,
advanced (cross-collection, multilingual and semantic) search and retrieval
intellectual property management and authorised use of DCH content.

26. Sustainability of DCH e-Infrastructure
National programmes in the areas of
Research
Cultural heritage
Innovation & e-government
European programmes
Infrastructures
ICT
CIP
Regional programmes for digitisation and access

27. Programmes coordination
The pre-requisite for the sustainability of the DCH e-Infrastructure is the coordination of public programmes: national, regional and European
The programmes addressed by DC-NET belong to two families:
Research for the cultural heritage
Creation and innovative access to digital content

28. Joint Programming Initiative for Cultural Heritage
"Cultural Heritage and Global Change: a new challenge for Europe“ - EC Recommendation 26/4/2010
17 Member States participate + 4 observers
Chaired by Italy
To define, develop and implement strategic research agendas
DC-NET is endorsed by the JPI

29. Joint Programming Initiative Cultural Heritage
NET-HERITAGE
DC-NET
Tangible
Cultural Heritage
Digital CulturalHeritage

30. Impacts Impact on the e-Infrastructures
The adoption of the e-Infrastructures by the digital cultural heritage community will open new scenarios of use and exploitation
Impact on the cultural heritage
Cultural managers will become more aware about the potential that the e-infrastructures can offer to their work: storage, preservation, services for the cultural institutions, etc.
Impact on European research
A better integration of the cultural sector with the e-Infrastructures will enable the research of new advanced services and applications
Impact on the general public
Digital cultural content will become more usable and re-usable for education, cultural tourism, long-life learning, non-professional cultural interests, etc. 30

31. Next appointment in Budapest
Under the aegis of the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union
23-24 June 2011 – Second DC-NET Conference focused on long-term digital preservation of
cultural conten
Further information online at:
www. dc-net.org 31

32. Thank you
Antonella FRESA DC-NET, INDICATE, LINKED HERITAGE Technical Coordinator