1. Digitisation, on-line access and digital preservation of Cultural Heritage in Europe
SLIS Cradle seminar
Chapel Hill, 20 March 2015
Javier Hernandez-Ros
EU Fellow at UNC European Commission – Head of Creativity unit

2. A defining challenge
"The digitisation, digital preservation and provision of meaningful access to Europe’s vast treasures of cultural heritage is one of the defining challenges for our generation. It is the fuel which will help power smart, sustainable growth, founded in the Enlightenment ideals that created the European Union.“
Neelie Kroes, VP European Commission
Enlightenment Ideals
1. Human autonomy is the means and end of Enlightenment
2. The importance of reason:
Freedom means being able to think rationally for yourself.
Reason will lead us to the truth.
3. Enlightenment is universal: All humans are equal by nature.
4. Progress Human history is the story of progress in the human condition.
5. Secularism: Religion and politics should be separated. One’s method of worship should be a private matter.
6. The centrality of economics to politics: A society’s well-being depends on how its economy is structured.
7. The ideal of popular government: People are capable of ruling themselves. The aristocracy is not the only class that deserves to rule.

3. How much has been digitised?

4. Film heritage: premium content
Only 1.5% of the 1 million hours of European film heritage holdings have actually been digitised
And a large part of it not accessible on-line due to copyright rules (access on dedicated premises)

5. Born digital content
Web sites, electronic journals, blogs, tweets, etc.
Very fragile resources
Raw material for future historians
The who, what and how of preserving these resources
Dark or accessible archives?

6. Google rocked the boat in 2005
Google Books: 10 years already…
Digitisation work had been done by memory organisations at snail pace since the 1990s
Microsoft quit digitisation work in 2007
Google YES, but not only…
Digitisation: political priority, a bit more funding
EC has been active in policy, legislation (orphan works), funding, coordination

7. Challenges in 2005… …and partly still today (1)
Organisational: Who does what? What do we digitise? How do we share it on line? - Digital Heritage NC
Who preserves digital born content? What do we preserve?
Financial: Who pays? Very little private funds in the EU. Foundations? PPPs: partnerships with Google? Monetise (public domain) content? Cultural data as an infrastructure. Sustainability?

8. Challenges in 2005… …and greatly still today (2)
Legal:
Copyright, orphan works, out of print works – 20th century dark hole
Sharing data: open data, CC licences, public domain content under licenses (museums)
Web archiving, preservation, dark archives
Technical:
Do we have the methodologies and technologies?
Standards, metadata, LOD

9. EC Actions: Policy, Legislation, Funding
Recommendations to Member States (guidance):
on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation
- on Film Heritage
Directive on the Re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI)
Open Data Policy
R&I programmes
Structural (regional) funds
The objective of ENUMERATE is to create a reliable baseline of statistical data about digitization, digital preservation and online access to cultural heritage in Europe.
ENUMERATE builds on the results of the NUMERIC project ( ). This was a ground breaking initiative to create a framework for the gathering of statistical data on digital cultural heritage. ENUMERATE will improve and refine the methodology from NUMERIC and will bring the data online for re-use.

10. Digital culture ecosystem -Supply (1)
Very much supply driven: Memory organisations, national/regional/local initiatives (Digital Heritage NC), digital humanities initiatives
Little private money (Google, Newspapers.com, Proquest, Ancestry.com, early photography archives)
UGC: stories of people + memory organisations content = Europeana 1914/18,

11. Digital culture ecosystem -Supply (2)
Portals and APIs
Platforms and aggregators: Wikicommons, FlickrCommons, Internet Archive, Europeana/DPLA, World digital library, Pinterest, Google Art, Artstore

12. Trends in supply Open data (NGA, Rijksmuseum), but not all…
Small ammounts when monetising collections
Digitisation not enough – Curation, apps, dissem.
Facilitate reuse: authoring tools, hackathons, prizes, start-ups
Engagement: UGC – Europeana , LoC
Cooperation with internet platforms/projects: multipliers

13. Digital culture ecosystem - Demand
Use and Reuse (apps of all sorts, teaching material, storytelling, AR/VR, virtual museums)
Prime content vs long tail
Demand sectors: education & culture, leisure, art lovers, research (long tail, TDM), cultural tourism, creative industries, cultural games
Cultural content has great demand (Wikipedia web site n° 7 in the world), huge visibility
Cultural tourism in Europe accounts for 40%

14. In one of her weekly podcast at the end of May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel talked to historian Frank Drauschke about the Europeana Awareness First World War-related project Europeana In the interview, she discussed the importance of such projects that invite people to participate in Europe´s history.
Europeana is based on an initiative at the University of Oxford where people across Britain were asked to bring family letters, photographs and keepsakes from the War to be digitised. The success of the idea – which became the Great War Archive – has encouraged Europeana, Europe's digital archive, library and museum, to bring other national institutions across Europe into an alliance with Oxford University. The collaboration brings European stories online alongside their British, German, Slovenian, Luxembourgian, Irish, etc. counterparts in a World War One stories collection.

15. The Market place
Great presence of non profit initiatives: Wikipedia, Google Books, Google Art, Khan Academy – smart history, Learning with the LoC..
Free access to culture heritage
Open data: positive effect (on everything)
Commercial reuse: documentaries, films, art publishers, publicity, fashion…
Apps: Daily art, museum apps, Google Trip

16. Business models Non profit projects make it difficult for businesses
Hackathons end at Lab products
Virtual museums, AR applications, apps paid by cultural institutions.
Some publicity paid apps (Google Trip)
Maintsreaming apps in established businesses (museums visitors, cultural visits)?
No Spotify for art …

17. EU Fellow at UNC: Impact of digitisation projects
Cultural, social and economic impact
Difficult to measure
Access indicators: web traffic, impressions in other platforms (Wikipedia, Facebook, Pinterest, FlickrCommons, Google Art, Khan Academy…),
Reuse indicators: downloads, licenses
Economic impact in creative industries, learning/education, tourism, cultural apps: case studies

18. Digital culture / Cultural heritage online Current funding programmes
Further Information
Digital culture / Cultural heritage online
Digital Culture, Recommendation on Digitisation and MSEG
Film Heritage
Europeana
Current funding programmes
Connecting Europe Facility (CEF)
Horizon 2020
In conclusion:
Policy & coordination feed into funding activities
Call upon group for help with definition of future activities
Promote activities in support of digital culture through programme committees

19. Past funding programmes
Further Information
Past funding programmes
FP7
Funded projects
ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP)
Follow us on Twitter
In conclusion:
Policy & coordination feed into funding activities
Call upon group for help with definition of future activities
Promote activities in support of digital culture through programme committees