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MINERVA. The Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising MINERVA. The Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising AActivities in Digitisation and its main ongoing initiativesctivities in Digitisation and its main ongoing initiatives

MINERVA. The Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising MINERVA. The Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising AActivities in Digitisation and its main ongoing initiativesctivities in Digitisation and its main ongoing initiatives

Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisationMinisterial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisation

Third International Third International ConferenceConference “ “New TeNew Technologies and Standards: Digitichnologies and Standards: Digitissation of ation of National Heritage 2004”National Heritage 2004” - - Belgrade, FaBelgrade, Faculty of Mathematics, culty of Mathematics, June 3rd-5th, 2004June 3rd-5th, 2004

Giuliana De FrancescoGiuliana De Francesco Belgrade, June 4th, 2004Belgrade, June 4th, 2004

defrancesco@beniculturali.it

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Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisationMinisterial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisationA network of Member States’ Ministries:

• to discuss, correlate and harmonise activities carried out in digitisation of cultural content, promote awareness and exchange of experiences at European level

• to create an agreed European platform made up of recommendations and guidelines about inventories of digital content, interoperability, long-term accessibility and preservation, quality of cultural Web sites

• to co-ordinate national programmes to embed the results in national digitisation activities, due to high level of commitment assured by the involvement of EU governments

• to enlarge the network

MINERVAMINERVA

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December 1999: eEurope initiative started on to foster the internet and new economy development across Europe and allow the citizens to participate to the information society

June 2000: eEurope Action Plan agreed by Heads of State and Government (Feira European Council); sets out a roadmap and defines the necessary measures to achieve eEurope’s target:

1. a cheaper, faster, secure Internet

2. investing in people and skills

3. stimulate the use of the Internet

d) European digital content for global networks

MINERVA framework: eEuropeMINERVA framework: eEurope

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MINERVA framework: Lund principlesMINERVA framework: Lund principlesLund, 4th April 2001: meeting of experts and representatives from Member States organised by the European Commission to accomplish coordination and foster European cultural content for global networks

Result: Lund Principles

“Europe's cultural and scientific knowledge resources are a unique public asset forming the collective and evolving memory of our diverse societies and providing a solid basis for the development of our digital content industries in a sustainable knowledge society”

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Digitisation of heritage resources is a crucial activity for:

• providing improved access for the citizen

• preserving Europe's collective cultural heritage (both past and future)

• sustaining and promoting cultural diversity in a global environment

• also a key resource for education and for the tourism and media industries

MINERVA framework: Lund principlesMINERVA framework: Lund principles

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MINERVA framework: Lund principlesMINERVA framework: Lund principles

Member States could make progress on the eEurope objective if they:

• establish an ongoing forum for coordination of policies for digitisation

• support the developing of a European view on policies and programmes

• exchange and promote good practices, guidelines and skills development

• work in a collaborative manner to make visible and accessible the digitised cultural heritage of Europe.

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MINERVA framework: Lund MINERVA framework: Lund Action PlanAction Plan

The Lund Action Plan establishes a set of actions to be carried out by Member States and European Commission, identifying also the areas where specific actions are needed.

Results of the actions are fed into an evolving plan for a sustainable set of activities in support of the digitisation framework across Europe:

• the progress and the set of actions are updated every year and revised every 6 months by the National Representatives Group.

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A National Representatives Group – NRG, made up of officially nominated experts from each Member State, was set up to coordinate digitisation policies and programmes and to facilitate and monitor the adoption and implementation of the Lund Action Plan.

Role of NRG:• to guarantee a close relationship between the Ministries or

governmental Institutions and the EC• to be the voice of national policies and programmes at European level• to assure that EC policies and programmes have a widespread

diffusion in every country

• to allow visibility to national initiatives

MINERVA framework: NRGMINERVA framework: NRG

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MINERVA framework: NRGMINERVA framework: NRGThe NRG meets every 6 months, co-chaired by the EU Presidency in turn and the EC

NAS NRG were appointed under the Italian presidency

During the 5th NRG meeting in Parma has been discussed and approved the Charter of Parma, a strategic document that continues and supports the Lund Principles

6th NRG meeting: 28th June, Dublin• 29th June, Dublin: conference Access all areas: serving the

user

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NRG ReportNRG ReportA result of coordination activities: NRG edites every year a Progress Report on CH digitisation policies, programmes and projects carried on in Member States

• Coordinating Digitisation in Europe. Progress report of the National Representatives Group 2002 Published in more than 3,000 copies, distributed trough the NRG to decision makers and experts in the field of digitisation of cultural heritageForthcoming:

Progress report of the National Representatives Group 2003 updating, including contributions from NAS, Israel and Russia

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MINERVAMINERVAFunded by the EC IST 5th Framework Programme, MINERVA is a collaborate operative framework for implementing Lund Action Plan and organising its working groups

Acts as secretariate for NRG meetings

Original partners: • Belgium (Ministère de la Communauté française)• Finland (University of Helsinky)• France (Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication)• Italy (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali)• Spain (Ministerio de Educaciòn, Cultura y Deporte)• Sweden (Riksarkivet)• United Kingdom (The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries)

By 2004 the 15 “earlier” EU Member States all joined MINERVA network

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MINERVA PlusMINERVA PlusMINERVA Plus enlarges the existing thematic network of European Ministries to the NAS countries, plus IsraelIsrael and RussiaRussia.

Partner: Austria, CzeCzecch Republih Republicc, EstoniaEstonia, Germany, Greece, HuHungaryngary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, MaltaMalta, PolandPoland, Portugal, Russia, SloveniaSlovenia.

Kick off meeting: Budapest, February 10th 2004 Next step: appointment of experts to participate in workgroups

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EnlargementEnlargementMINERVA is an open network: a strong effort is devoted to enlargement

Twofold:

1. organisations in the cultural field: associations, Universities and research centres, private enterprises: their contribution is crucial to harmonise digitisation activities

2. geographic coverage

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Cooperation: Cooperation: Digitisation clusterDigitisation cluster

MINERVA promoted a coordination between the European cultural networks, aiming at creating a European common research area.

Rome, 30 October 2003: definition of the “Rome agendaRome agenda”Florence 31 March 2004: identifying specific areas for cooperation

Networks involved:BRICKS, CALIMERA, DELOS, DIGICULT, EMII-DCF, EPOCH, ERPANET, EUROMED HERITAGE II, EVA, HEREIN, SCRAN, MINERVA, MUSICNETWORK, PRESTOSPACE

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MINERVA WorkgroupsMINERVA WorkgroupsWP1

WP7 WP8

Project management and network coordination. Strategic impact and enlargement of the network. Dissemination of results

Italy

WP2 Benchmarking framework Finland

WP3 Inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingualism issues

France

WP4 Interoperability and service provision UK

WP5 Identification of user needs, content and quality framework for common access points

Belgium

WP6 Good practices and competence centres Sweden

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MINERVA Plus WPs: specific topicsMINERVA Plus WPs: specific topics

WP Specific topic CoordinatorWP3, Inventories, discovery

of digitised content, multilingualism issues

multilingual thesauri Hungary

WP4, Interoperability and service provision

business models for digitisation programmes

Greece

WP5, Identification of user needs, quality framework for common access points

small cultural institutions

requirements

Germany

WP6 Good practices and competence centres

digitisation cost reduction

Israel

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WP3 Inventories, discovery of digitised WP3 Inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingualism issuescontent, multilingualism issues

Development of inventories of digital collection and digitisation projects, for the best visibility and accessibility of European scientific and cultural digital contents

1.Definition of a data model and a metadata set for collection description. Four independent interconnected sections:

2.Implemented on an open source platform: Prototype of a portal of French and Italian digital collections

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WP3 Inventories, discovery of digitised WP3 Inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingualism issuescontent, multilingualism issues

Multilingualism issues

Background: Common online services to access heritage resources will raise the European added value for citizens.

A major challenge: To respect cultural and linguistic diversity while ensuring a coherent access to resources produced in various countries.

• Preliminary survey on existing solutions for multilingual information retrieval, to facilitate production of multilingual resources and multilingual description of collections and services

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WP3 Inventories, discovery of digitised WP3 Inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingualism issuescontent, multilingualism issues

MINERVA Plus WP3 “Multilingual thesauri” Workplan

Survey to map the multilingualism of cultural websites and portals and the use of tools for cross-lingual information retrieval, particularly of multilingual thesauri

• Launch the campaign: circulation of questionnaire in MINERVA Plus member countries

• Presentation of data collection at the Dublin NRG meeting (29th June)

• Analysis of data, redaction of conclusions and recommendations by december 2004

• Dissemination of results: 2005

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MICHAEL, a MINERVA spin offMICHAEL, a MINERVA spin off

Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe - MICHAEL: project presented by MiBAC and financed by eTEN programme.

Partners: France, Italy, and UK.

Aims at developing a trans-european inventory of cultural digital collections and resources and will develop an online service to allow to search, browse and examine them from a single access point. Platform based on standard and open source technologies.

MICHAEL develops the results of MINERVA achievements in the field of Inventories of digitised content (WP3) and interoperability (WP4), in particular the French-Italian prototype of a portal of digital collections elaborated by WP3

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WP4 WP4 Interoperability and service provisionInteroperability and service provision

Three action lines:

1. Interoperability

D 4.1: recommendations on the use of DC.Culture and OAI

2. Standards

Technical guidelines for digital cultural content creation programmes

3. IPR

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WP5 Identification of user needs, content and WP5 Identification of user needs, content and quality framework for common access pointsquality framework for common access pointsDefining quality principles and criteria and fostering quality plan for cultural and scientific Web sites, in order to exploit the possibilities offered by the Web for communication in the field of cultural heritage

• Handbook for quality in cultural Web sites: improving quality for citizens (Version 1.2, november 2003)

• Cultural Web site quality principles

“A quality cultural Web site celebrates European cultural diversity by providing access for all to digital cultural content”. It must be:

transparent - effective - maintained - accessible - user centred - transparent - effective - maintained - accessible - user centred - responsive - multilingual - interoperable - managed - preservedresponsive - multilingual - interoperable - managed - preserved

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WP6 Good practices and competence centresWP6 Good practices and competence centres Selection of:

• competence and advisory centres on digitisation

• good practices developed within Member State programmes and projects

• promotion and visibility in order to exchange expertise, experiences and skills

• First selection of good practices presented in the framework of the NRG meeting in Alicante (May 2002)

• 2004: MINERVA launched a new campaign for identification of good practices and competence centres

• Submission forms available on MINERVA Web site.

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WP6 Good practices and competence centresWP6 Good practices and competence centresGood practices handbookA pragmatic collection of lessons learnt by the analysis of good practices

• aims at providing useful information for the establishment, execution and management of digitisation projects

• target: teams within and across cultural institutions who are planning, or are already executing, digitisation projects.

Composed by a printed handbook (available in english, french and italian) and complemented by on-line resources:

• list of url of analysed good practices

• collection of existing guidelines on digitisation

• list of competence centres

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A programme of training courses that adopts open distance learning and an eLearning platform has been set up

• to diffuse the results of the project • to allow people to access training materials and communicate with European colleagues

Two learning packages already developed are going to be put on the platform:

• Quality principles for web sites in the cultural sector• Technical guidelines for digital cultural content creation programmes

TrainingTraining

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Technical Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content Technical Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content Creation ProgrammesCreation Programmes

Technical Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content Technical Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content Creation ProgrammesCreation Programmes

Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisationMinisterial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisation

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PurposePurpose

Intended primarily as a resource for policy-makers, and for those implementing funding programmes for the creation of digital cultural content

Not a single prescriptive set of requirements to which all projects must conform

Seeks to identify those areas in which there is already commonality of approach and to provide a core around which context-specific requirements might be built

Guidelines for Programmes • may also be useful for projects

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What is a technical standard?What is a technical standard?

British Standards Institution:

“A standard is a published specification that establishes a common language, and contains a technical specification or other precise criteria and is designed to be used consistently, as a rule, a guideline, or a definition”

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Why use technical standards?Why use technical standards?Throughout Europe, international, national, regional and local initiatives are investing significant public and private sector funding to enable access to a range of cultural heritage resources through digital channels.

In order that the content produced is as widely useful, portable and durable as possible, resources should be interoperable

Consistency

The appropriate use of standards in digitisation can deliver the consistency that makes interoperability possible.

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Why use technical standards?Why use technical standards?

Technical standards support:• Interoperability• Access• Preservation• Security

Benefits for:• Users

• Information providers• Funding agencies• Authors/creators

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Structure: ‘life cycle’ approachStructure: ‘life cycle’ approach

Structure of TG reflects a ‘life cycle’ approach to the digitisation process (paralleled in MINERVA Good Practice Handbook):

• it emphasises the importance of seeing the project as a whole, and how decisions taken at given stages have implications for the rest of the process and affect the continuing development of the service.

10 sections matching life cycle stage (not necessarily sequential; dependencies and relationships)

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Structure: main sectionsStructure: main sections

1. Introduction

2. Preparation for digitisation (Hardware, Software, Environment)

3. Handling of originals (Appropriate movement and manipulation of original material, Staff training)

4. The digitisation process

5. Storage and management of the digital master material (File formats, Media choices, Preservation strategies)

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Structure: main sectionsStructure: main sections

6. Metadata creation/capture (The scope of the metadata, Appropriate standards, including: 6.2.3. Preservation Metadata)

7. Publication (Processing for delivery, 3D and Virtual Reality Issues, Geographic Information Systems, Web Sites)

8. Disclosure of resources (Metadata harvesting, Distributed searching, Alerting, Web services, RDF and Web ontologies)

9. Re-use and re-purposing (Learning resource creation)

10. Intellectual property rights and Copyright (Identifying, recording and managing IPR, Safeguarding IPR)

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Requirement levelsRequirement levels

Requirement levels ‘must’ ‘should’ and ‘may’ are used. Based on Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) terminology

• not absolute in themselves – but guidance for individual projects to set out their own requirements levels

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ContentContent

Within each section guidance on practice, and detailed standards is provided.

Links also provided to:

• standards

• sources of further guidance

• further information

Links are important in addressing issue of currency of the guidelines

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Where they come fromWhere they come from

Experience

• €50m UK NOF-digitise Programme

Consultation• PULMAN, EMII-DCF and ERPANet projects

Expertise

• wide range of experts• developed by UKOLN in association with MLA for

the MINERVA project

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Main sourcesMain sources

• MINERVA Good Practice Handbook (Version 1.2, November 2003)

• EMII-DCF Framework Report (September 2003), particularly the DataCapture Model in Chapter 16.

• PULLMAN Standards for managing projects in public libraries

• NOF digitise Technical Standards and Guidelines (Version 5, February 2003)

It also draws on a number of other international sources

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Dissemination strategyDissemination strategy

To foster the adoption by national digitisation programmes and by European projects which deal with digitisation of cultural heritage

What has been already done?What has been already done?

National initiatives:

• French version Version de travail 0.065

• Italian working group established to produce the Italian version. TG are going to be used to support the creation of digital resources for the National Multilingual Portal of the Cultural and Tourism Resources

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Dissemination strategyDissemination strategyOngoing:Ongoing:

Digitisation cluster

TG are being proposed for adoption by European cultural networks which joined the cluster

(BRICKS, CALIMERA, DELOS, DIGICULT, EMII-DCF, EPOCH, ERPANET, EVA network, HEREIN, SCRAN, MINERVA, MUSICNETWORK, PRESTOSPACE)

• feedback expected

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Value of doing this togetherValue of doing this together

• avoiding duplication• interoperability• share good practice• encourage consistent advice• platform for training• keeping updated as technology changes

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MaintenanceMaintenance

A European “task force” will be set up as focal point for the maintenance and the updating of Technical Guidelines and other guidelines produced in the framework of the MINERVA project

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AvailabilityAvailability

www.minervaeurope.org/publications/technicalguidelines.htm

• Technical Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content Creation Programmes. – 2004-04-08. Version 1.0. [pdf 274kb]

• Recommandations techniques pour les programmes de création de contenus culturels numériques – 2004-01-11. Version de travail 0.065

• Draft versions

Soon available: Italian translation

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contact detailscontact details

www.minervaeurope.orgwww.minervaeurope.orgAll MINERVA publications and MINERVA publications and

dodoccumentation are available (and umentation are available (and downloadable) on the Websitedownloadable) on the Website

defrancesco@beniculturali.it

minerva@beniculturali.it