1. MinervaEC MinervaEC Bulgaria National Workshop
Sofia, February 26, 2008
MinervaEC
MInisterial NEtwoRk for Valorising Activities in digitisation,
eContentplus Supporting the European Digital Library
Antonella Fresa
Technical Coordinator

2. MinervaEC: the project
Thematic Network
Supported under eContentplus
Started on 1st October 2006
Duration: 2 years
Coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Culture
22 EU countries
More than 150 cultural institutions from all over Europe

3. MinervaEC and the European digital library
MinervaEC continues the work undertaken by MINERVA and MINERVA Plus towards the elaboration of a platform of recommendations, guidelines and tools for digitisation.
MinervaEC supports MICHAEL, MICHAEL Plus and ATHENA initiatives.
MinervaEC is aligned with:
i2010 strategy for a European Information Society for growth and employment,
the EC Recommendation on digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation,
and the Council Conclusions.
In this light, it contributes to the creation of the European digital library.

4. MINERVA and MINERVA Plus: a flashback
MINERVA – IST FP5
from 2002 until 2005
7 countries
MINERVA Plus – FP6
from 2004 until 2006
14 EU countries + Russia and Israel

5. MINERVA and MINERVA Plus at a glance
Aligned with eEurope
Implementing the Lund Action Plan
In synergy with the National Representatives Group (NRG)
5 working groups:
Benchmarking
Inventories of digital content
Interoperability and IPR
Quality and user needs
Best practices and Competence Centres

6. MINERVA and MINERVA Plus main results
Annual Reports: 4 editions (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005)
A set of practical Handbooks:
Good Practices
Technical Guidelines
Good quality cultural websites
Cost reduction
Multilingual websites and thesauri
The Minerva website:
9 NRG meetings under the aegis of 9 EU Presidencies: Alicante-Spain, Copenhagen-Denmark, Corfu-Greece, Parma-Italy, Dublin-Ireland, The Hague-The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Bristol-UK, Salzburg-Austria
Hundreds of European cultural institutions involved in workshops, seminars, training

7. MICHAEL and MICHAEL Plus deploying MINERVA results
2 deployment projects
Supported by eTEN
Involving 18 EU countries
Based on the metadata standard for cultural inventories developed by MINERVA
Aimed to build a unique multilingual access point to the digital collections of museums, libraries and archives in Europe
Total investment: ˜90 million €

8. MICHAEL Users many different user communities education
cultural tourism
research
‘co-ordination’
and computers …

9. MICHAEL actors and roles
Ministries of culture: coordination and financing
Central cultural institutes: standardisation and guidelines
Technology providers: software implementation
Regions and Universities: surveys and local coordination of the cataloguers
The actual cultural institutions on the territory: museums, libraries and archives to provide content

10. Policy links MICHAEL and MICHAEL Plus have strong policy links
The success of the initiative is based on the actual political commitment at national and European levels
Main targeted policy domains:
Culture & multilingualism
Education & training
Research & innovation
Tourism & economic development

11. Cross-domain approach
MICHAEL data model is suitable for describing digital collections belonging to every sector of cultural heritage and for recording related and context information:
Institutions
Projects / programmes
Services / products
Physical collections
MICHAEL aimed since the beginning at giving integrated access to the whole European cultural heritage through the Internet

12. MICHAEL European portal
Launched December 2006
Periodical harvesting of the published national instances

13. MICHAEL national portalsFR
1450 digital collections
500 institutions
250 services-products
766 digital collections
616 services
321 projects
306 institutions UK
2588 digital collections
1396 institutions
1404 services/products
1520 physical collections
423 projects/programs IT

14. Catalogue des fonds culturels numérises (FR)
The projects phases
R&D initial deploym. full depl.
Catalogue des fonds culturels numérises (FR)
MICHAEL
MICHAEL Plus
new initiatives: ATHENA, EDL-Local, etc.
eEurope …………… i2010 ……………… European Digital Library
MINERVA, MINERVA Plus, MINERVA-EC
2002 ……… /2004 … … 05/ ………… 05/2008

15. MinervaEC objectives Aligned with and Europeana
To improve accessibility to and visibility of European digital cultural resources;
To contribute to increasing interoperability between existing networks of services;
To promote the use of digital cultural resources by business and citizens;
To facilitate exploitation of cultural digital resources, providing clear rules for their use and re-use, respecting and protecting the creators’ rights.

16. MinervaEC targets Beneficiaries of the actions of the project:
public and private organisations and institutions that create, collect or own digital content;
private citizens, interested in receiving quality contents, reliable and directly responding to their interests;
universities and schools, which wants to use cultural contents for educational purposes in a legal and safe environment;
small and large enterprises interested in (re)using digital cultural content.

17. MinervaEC approach
The MinervaEC approach follows the steps of the MINERVA project:
a tight liaison with the national digitisation policies
the implementation of the results achieved into new initiatives (e.g. MICHAEL, MICHAEL Plus, ATHENA)
the involvement of experts from all the cultural institutions (museums, libraries, archives etc.)
the cooperation with the other networks (EDLnet, EPOCH, DELOS, etc.)

18. MinervaEC publications
2 Annual Reports (the edition 2008 is ongoing, under the direct coordination of EC)
5 Thematic publications:
Map of the cultural heritage in Europe
IPR guidelines
Technical guidelines v.2
Directory of the European legislation v.2
Study on the user needs
Project dissemination literature

19. MinervaEC national workshops
National workshops in each partner country to promoter MINERVA and to illustrate its tools and publications:
Brussels, 24/4/2007
Santiago de Compostela, 11/5/2007
Poprad, 2/10/2007
Vilnius, 4/10/2007
Tallin, 18-19/10/2007
Riga, 30/10/2007
Bratislava, 12-13/11/2007
Jerusalem, 20-21/11/2007
Sofia, 26/02/2008
…..

20. MinervaEC project meetings
Working groups meetings:
Rome, 5/12/2006
Berlin, 20/6/2007
Plenary meetings in cooperation with the EU Presidencies:
Helsinki, 12 October 2006
Berlin, 23 February 2007
Ljubljana, 5-6 June 2008
Paris, 27 November 2008 (final event)

21. The future MinervaEC will last until September 2008
The next project is ATHENA, currently under negotiation.
ATHENA is a Best Practice Network, coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Culture and supported by the EC in the frame of eContentplus programme
Currently under negotiation, it will last for the next 2 years, with the participation of many partners from all over Europe.
The Academy of Science is partner of ATHENA.

22. ATHENA objectives
to reinforce the participation of Museums and other institutions coming from the sectors of Cultural Heritage that are not yet getting enough involved in the creation of the EDL;
to contribute to the integration of the different sectors of cultural heritage promoting standards and guidelines, in order to harmonise their contributions to the EDL;
to develop a set of plug-ins to be integrated within the EDL, facilitating the access to and the re-use of digital contents belonging to European cultural institutions museums, libraries and archives.

23. Next appointments 19 March, Luxembourg: MinervaEC National Workshop
18 April, Florence: MinervaEC workshop in the frame of EVA Florence
19-20 May, Warsaw: MICHAEL International Conference
23 May 2008, London: MICHAEL UK Conference
5-6 June 2008, Ljubljana: International conference on media and digital cultural heritage, under the aegis of the Slovenian Presidency of the EU
25 August, Vienna: MinervaEC National Workshop, in the frame of EVA Vienna
November 2008: International conference on the European Digital Library, under the aegis of the French Presidency of EU
Second Half 2008: launch of ATHENA Best Practice Network

24. Thank you for your attention