The MINERVA ProjectThe MINERVA ProjectMarzia PiccininnoMarzia Piccininno London, London,

25th July 200325th July 2003

Ministerial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activising in digitisation

What is MINERVAAA NETWORK OF MEMBER STATES’ NETWORK OF MEMBER STATES’

MINISTRIESMINISTRIES

to discuss, correlate and harmonise activities carried out in digitisation of cultural and scientific content;

for creating agreed European common recommendations and guidelines about:

– digitisation, – metadata, – long-term accessibility,– preservation.

•MINERVA is the operative section of a wider framework made up of the Lund Principles, the LUND Action Plan and the National Representatives Group (NRG) in the field of the cultural heritage digitisation.

•The members agreed to give the highest visibility to the Lund Principles in their countries, by setting-up national structures in charge of disseminating the results of the MINERVA project and assure a European coordination.

The MINERVA framework

ForegroundJune 2000: eEurope Action Plan endorsement by EU Member States (renewd until 2005)

4th of April 2001: meeting in Lund to discuss co-ordination mechanisms for digitisation programmes across European Member States and how to stimulate a European content on global networks.

Lund Principles to be developed through the

Lund Action Plan

MINERVA is the instrument to support the implementation of the Lund Action Plan

Lund Principles: the major outcome of the meeting

They state that the 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 consistency of practice and skills development;

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

http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka3/digicult/lund_principles.htm

Lund Action PlanThe Action Plan describes a first set of actions

to be launched, and assigns responsibilities for them to Member States or to the European Commission.

The Lund Action Plan takes as its reference the Lund Principles, identifying four main areas where specific actions are needed:

Area 1:Improving policies and programmes through co-operation and benchmarking

Area 2:Discovery of digitised resourcesArea 3:Promotion of good practiceArea 4:Content framework

National Representatives GroupThe NRG is made up of officially nominated

experts from each Member State. Purposes:• to coordinate digitisation policies and

programmes and to facilitate the adoption and implementation of the Lund Action Plan.

• to monitor progress regarding the objectives encapsulated in the Lund Principles.

The NRG meets every 6 months to share national experiences under the aegis of the presidency in turn.

Activities• MINERVA has demonstrated to contribute to

the creation of a broad consensus on the European framework derived from the e-Europe initiative

• In many countries, under the aegis of MINERVA, many new national programmes of digitisation of cultural heritage started up

• MINERVA has contributed to creating a process of institutional collaboration among the various presidencies of the European Union

The “rolling agenda”

In order to guarantee the continuity of the initiatives undertaken, the past, present and future presidencies of the EU commonly define the so-called “rolling agenda”.

Benchmarking• To exchange comparable information between Member States on programmes and policies;

• To give visibility to national activities in order to share similar experiences and skills;

• To promote the adoption of a benchmarking framework as a key tool for coordinating and harmonising national activities as well as to develop measures to show progress and improvement.

BenchmarkingShort term strategy:

•Elaboration of a data model to collect information (phase closing on August 2003; report on the results achieved so far, NRG meeting in Corfu (June 2003)

Long term strategy:

• Complete definition of the data base;

• to set-up methodology, shared data format and tool, for collecting data on a continuous base;

• to update constantly qualitative and quantitative information and to create a common database.

Inventories, discovery of digitised content, multilingual issues

To share experiences, to discuss and facilitate implementation of common actions concerning:

inventories of past, on-going and planned digitisation projects based on national observatories;

technical infrastructure for coordinated discovery of European digitised cultural content, including a common set of metadata for description;

multilingual issues;

Analysis of the French model of descriptive standards and its adaptability to the Italian requirements.

Interoperability, Service Provision,IPR

• analysing, identifying and evaluating activities on metadata, registries and schemes;

•discussion on standards, conformance testing centres, agreed terminologies, common metadata schema, middleware specifications;

• examination of related legal issues, such as IPR and copyright;

User needs, contents and quality framework

•quality criteria for the digitised content (MINERVA Handbook expected by end of 2003),•encourage quality plan in cultural and

scientific web sites;•supporting the initiatives launched by the

European Commission with the provision of national digital content;•encourage training actions in cultural

sites.

Good practicesAim:

• to select and promote good practice examples from Member State programmes and projects in order to exchange experiences, skills and collect consensus from different communities of users.

• First selection presented in Alicante, June 2002

• First MINERVA Handbook on Good Practices to be published during the Italian Presidency

TrainingA programme of training courses that uses opendistance learning methodologies has been set

up todiffuse the results of the project. Action lines:1. digitisation: process, cataloguing and

management, including metadata for the preservation;

2. legal aspects: IPR/copyright and data protection;

3. quality: criteria for design and development of cultural web sites;

4. management of projects and services.

PublicationsAlready published• Progress report of the National

Representatives Group 2002Next publications• Good practice handbook with the

collection of the existing guidelines on digitisation

• Quality framework for the development of cultural Web sites

• Collection of the existing laws on IPR• Progress report of the National

Representatives Group 2003 (2004)

New toolsThe Newsletter:The subscription to the English

newsletter is now possible through the MINERVA web site: a constant updating about the MINERVA news.

The MINERVA mailing list:Soon available, the MINERVA mailing list

will distribute information to users interested in the digitisation issues

Some reasons to join MINERVAWhy should an organisation invest in order

to bring its activities under the MINERVA framework ?• to share knowledge and experiences, avoiding to duplicate the efforts;• to coordinate national/local initiatives within a European approach, being prepared for larger exploitation;• to share technological platforms and tools, saving efforts and money in replicating what already exists;• to contribute to the necessary and ambitious common goal of implementing the Lund Action Plan.

Italian Presidency Events 1Minerva participation• Florence, 16th-17th October: International

Conference on Long Term Preservation of Digital Memories (organised by the MiBAC - DG for Libraries, in cooperation with MINERVA)

• Naples, 23rd-24th October: seminar Territorial information systems for the conservation, preservation and management of Cultural Heritage (organised by the MiBAC - DG for Archaeology, in cooperation with MINERVA)

Italian Presidency Events 2

Minerva organisation• Rome, 29th October: workshop Digitisation:

what to do and how to do it (in cooperation with AIB)

• Parma, 19th November: NRG meeting

• Parma, 20th-21st November: International Conference Quality for Cultural Web Sites (organised with MiBAC, City of Parma, Emilia-Romagna region, Parma local authorities, University of Parma)

The Parma ConferenceQuality in cultural Web sites - Online Cultural Heritage

for Research, Education and Cultural Tourism Communities

The conference intends to debate the main themes connected to the aspects of the online accessibility of cultural heritage to facilitate its access to a wider public all over the world, and to promote the development and valorisation of cultural tourism services.

• I session: Accessibility and communication: principles - best practices

• II session: Guidelines on quality for cultural Web sites• III session: IPR, copyright and data protection

The poster session

The poster session “Web quality for culture” is already open (deadline 15th September):

1. Content quality for cultural Web Site

2. Accessibility 3. IPR issues 4. Communication and language

… and MinervaPLUS

• MINERVAplus intends to enlarge the existing network to extend its dimension to the new countries accessing the Union in 2004, Russia, and Israel

• The project was approved on the occasion of last callof the 6FP

For further information:www.minervaeurope.orgminerva@beniculturali.it

Thanks for your attention. Keep in touch soon…