The local dimension in the European Digital Library: from MINERVA and CALIMERA to MICHAEL

1. The local dimension in the European Digital Library: from MINERVA and CALIMERA to MICHAEL Kate Fernie, MLA Intelligent Access to Digital Heritage, Tallin, October 2007

2. Background Since the 1990s, across Europe, State and local authority programmes have invested in the digitisation of cultural collections from across the sectors, involving thousands of cultural institutions and private organisations - archives, libraries, museums, historic environment conservation bodies, audiovisual archives, scientific and research institutions and others.

3. Locally-held content • Local cultural institutions hold lots of digital content and lots more that needs to be digitised • The content is very diverse and in heterogeneous formats • It is widely distributed between organisations in municipalities, regions/territories and localities

4. Billy Pigg (1902-1968) was very highly regarded and was said by some to be the best Northumbrian piper ever Skye crofters

5. Public libraries, museums and archives are essential contributors of our collective memory of the varied cultural traditions and communities in Europe. But they have to be mobilized to make best use of technology. They need support from policy makers. We need to know more about the content that they can offer! Local dimension

6. European context • eEurope - Feira summit in June 2000 launched a programme to stimulate the development and use of European digital content on the global networks and to promote linguistic diversity in the information society • Coordination actions under IST: • FP4 – PubliCA [1998-2000] • FP5 – PULMAN [2001-3] • FP5 – MINERVA [2002-] • FP6 – CALIMERA [2004-5]

7. MINERVA • Network of policy makers and professionals from cultural ministries and national institutions (EU) • Core concern: harmonising the digitisation of cultural and scientific content across Europe • Avoiding fragmentation, minimising duplication, enabling long-term accessibility and preservation • Interoperability • Technical guidelines • Quality, accessibility, usability • Inventories of projects http://www.minervaeurope.org/home.htm

8. Interoperability work • establishing the framework for the information environment • Working on standards • Building on expertise, identifying competence centres • Producing reports and guidelines

9. Technical Standards - Purpose • for policy-makers and funding programmes for the creation of digital cultural content • identify areas where there is broad agreement • no surprises!!! • 30,000+ downloads • being implemented by funding programmes • England, Greece, Italy, France, Netherlands, Israel and Sweden

10. Quality

11. http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk/jodis/– Jodi Award 2004/5

12. Digital readiness

13. CALIMERA • A network of professionals, policy-makers, researchers and suppliers from 43 countries (EU and neighbouring states) • Core concern: what new digital technologies mean for end-users of cultural services • Policy work: sensitizing decision-makers, professionals and solution providers • Guides for practitioners on digital services, available in over 30 languages. http://www.calimera.org

14. Policy work Policy work to sensitize decision-makers, professionals and solution providers at European, national and local levels: • Information gathering • Engagement • Policy tool kit

15. Calimera Guidelines • Social Policy • Cultural identity, eGovernment, citizenship, learning, social and economic development • Management • Business models, staffing, planning • Technical • Deployment to meet user needs

16. Identify and Acquire Describe Preserve Ask Provide Validate Publish View Interpret Share Create Acquire Learn Discuss Affirm Enjoy Enable Assess Design Teach Disseminate Communicate User centred

17. Discovery We need ways to help us to find the wealth of content that is available from local institutions

18. Vision Connecting people to collections from museums, libraries, archives, and cultural and scientific organisations across Europe St John’s College Cambridge: Manuscript collection Susan teaches music in a primary school Play burmese musical instruments online: Museums Open Learning Initiative

19. MICHAEL • Builds on work by MINERVA on specifications for inventories of digitised content based on international standards • 18 countries are participating: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden and UK

20. Cross domain Museums, libraries, archives, audio-visual archives and other institutions are contributing descriptions of their collections

21. MICHAEL European service http://www.michael-culture.org/en/home

23. Benefits of MICHAEL: increasing the visibility of local collections – alongside the collections of the great national institutions reaching new audiences (nationally and internationally) enabling users to access exciting local content planning future digitisation to complement what is available from others For local institutions

24. The European Digital Library MICHAEL is a powerful tool for: Discovering digital content from local and regional institutions Knowing who has what Identifying content to build themes

25. Next steps? • Locally held content accessible to a distributed network of repositories connected to the European Digital Library • Needs simple, comparatively low cost implementation at local level – OAI-PMH • Needs to be based on standards and guidelines promoted through MINERVA and CALIMERA – No surprises!

26. Thank you kate.fernie@mla.gov.uk