National approaches to digitisation

With the arrival of Europeana, there is a need to streamline the creation and exchange of digitised cultural heritage on an international level. The European Commission urges the European member states to invest in large scale digitisation programmes and a robust digital infrastructure that can support the growth of Europeana. Europeana seeks large scale aggregators to contribute content. But how does this European approach relate to the national practices? In the past years, many governments have invested in national digital heritage services, such as geo-portals, touristic services or thematic websites. In this debate we will discuss some of the different approaches to make digital heritage available in a national context. What were critical policy issues for national governments to invest in digitisation of cultural heritage? How did the cultural heritage sector organise itself to offer digital services on a national level? What will be the critical factors of success for national services in a world that becomes more and more open and 2.0?

Chair:

Ronald Wiemer (State Service for Cultural Heritage, The Netherlands)

Ronald Wiemer is consultant Geographic Information Systems at de Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency (part of the Ministry of Culture) . In his work Rondal mainly focuses on the development of spatial Heritage information infrastructures. In the Netherlands he is the main force behind "Kich", an information Infrastructure for Cultural Heritage.

Speakers:

Hans van der Linden (Flemish Ministry of Culture, Belgium)

Hans van der Linden works at the Arts and Heritage Agency of the Flemish Community since 2005. His day to day work focuses on digitisation within the cultural heritage field. Hans is and has been involed in policy advise and policy preparation in this field, including activities such as publications, research and innovative projects. On a European level the agency has been part of the Minerva and Michael-networks. For the Athena and Europeana local projects the agency has been involved in facilitating the participation of the Flemish cultural heritage field. The Arts and Heritage agency also initiated the coordination of all Europeana-related projects in the ‘Europeana Vlaanderen Overlegplatform’.

Monika Hagedorn-Saupe (Institute for Museum Research, State Museums of Berlin, Foundation Prussian Heritage, Germany / ATHENA project)

Prof. Monika Hagedorn-Saupe studied mathematics, sociology, psychology, and adult education at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, at Kings College London, and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Since 1994, she has been Head of the department "Visitor-related museum research and museum statistics" in the Institut for Museum Research. She is responsible for several European projects and acts as the Deputy Director of the Institute.
Since 1997 she chairs the Special Interest Group on Documentation (Fachgruppe Dokumentation) in the German museum association (Deutscher Museumsbund e.V.) and is Secretary of CIDOC, the documentation committee in ICOM. Currently she is a board member of the German Museum Association and represents ICOM-Europe at the EDL-Foundation. Since 2006 she is Honorary Professor at the University of Applied Science HTW in Berlin and teaches museology.

Sidsel Hindal (Secretariat of The Norwegian Year of Cultural Heritage 2009)

Sidsel Hindal is currently the project manager of the Norwegian Year of Cultural Heritage 2009.  Sidsel has broad experience from the cultural heritage domain.  She has a master in cultural history and held positions at museums and The Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority.  Cross- sectorial projects and internalization has been the main focus of her work. Sidsel had a brief stint at the European Commission, Information Society and Media Directorate-General in 2000, and she was one of the Norwegian co-coordinators of CALIMERA (Cultural Applications: Local Institutions Mediating Electronic Resource Access) 2004-2006.

Mateja Šmid Hribar (Digital Encyclopedia of Slovenian Natural and Cultural heritage, Slovenia)

Mateja Šmid Hribar is a researcher at the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Mateja holds a BA in Sociology of Culture and Philosophy and a M.Sc. in Conservation of Natural Heritage. Mateja believes that individuals can preserve only what they know and thus her research interest involves public participation in digital heritage collections. Much of her works focuses on digital presentation of cultural and natural heritage through Web 2.0. In additiona Mateja studies the human-nature relationship presented as heritage trees, cultural landscape, land use etc. 

Marco de Niet (Digital Heritage Netherlands, the Netherlands)

Marco de Niet is the director of the DEN foundation, the Dutch ICT knowledge center for cultural heritage. He studied Dutch language and literature, and history of the book at Leiden University. Before DEN he worked at the National Library of the Netherlands, as head of Innovative Projects and Digital Preservation. He is one of the founders of The European Library-service.