The 5th meeting of the DCHE held in Luxemburg, presented a full agenda for participants starting with the latest updates from the European Commission in terms of Europeana Generic Services 2019 calls, and upcoming Horizon 2020 calls, as well as the new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, and a summary of the legacy of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018. The representative of Finland to the expert group presented upcoming highlights of Finland’s Presidency of the Council of the EU & Europeana meeting, while the representative of Luxembourg to the expert group gave an overview of the rightsstatements.org project, including latest available translations.
The afternoon of the first day of the meeting was dedicated to latest developments regarding the Europeana initiative. The leader of the consortium operating the initiative gave an overview of various implementation aspects of Europeana DSI-4, including the spring 2019 seasonal campaign on Europeana Collections: Women’s season, which highlighted the Pioneers online exhibition launched in cooperation with Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society.
The Sub-group on Europeana put forth to the DCHE its first deliverable on the topic of implementation of the Europeana DSI-4, which was endorsed by the DCHE expert group by consensus. In summary, the DCHE endorsed the Sub-group’s advice to firstly, suppress from the search results, the records that do not comply with the Europeana Publishing Framework; and secondly, change the August 2020 targets for data quality based on the proposal made by the operator.
As 3D technologies for digitisation and online access of cultural heritage are becoming increasingly important, Ms. Kate Fernie from 2Culture Associates and the Chair of the Europeana 3D Task Force gave a 3-parts presentation on updates regarding 3D content in Europeana task force, the Europeana Archaeology project building the Archaeology thematic collection and the Sharing New Perspectives projects.
Europeana aggregators was another important topic explored at this meeting. National and cross-border thematic and domain aggregators play a central role in digital cultural heritage and online accessibility of content. Aggregators is a network of more than 30 institutions gathering digital cultural content from cultural heritage institutions and sharing their collections online on Europeana. They are important players in the Europeana ecosystem also because among other functions, they streamline the technical process between these institutions and Europeana. Marco Rendina, Chair of the Aggregator Forum Steering Group presented an overview of the aggregators’ landscape in Europe and Prof. Frederik Truyen from KU Leuven presented the Europeana Common Culture generic services project aiming at coordinating and establishing an environment for national aggregators.
Building on the 4th DCHE meeting results, the second day was dedicated to endangered monuments and historical buildings and sites, and the potential of technology, especially 3D and emerging technologies to provide support in this area. A special presentation was given by Louise Haxthausen, UNESCO representative to the European Union, with an intervention by Mr. Fackson Banda, UNESCO Programme Specialist for the Memory of the World Programme.
After less than a month since the fire that broke out at Notre Dame of Paris on the 15 April 2019, Mr. Grégory Chaumet from Sorbonne University Paris gave a special presentation on the possible next steps after the Notre Dame fire. He highlighted important architectural aspects that must be considered, and the relevance of the 3D scanning and research done by Prof. Andrew Tallon and Prof. Dany Sandron. His presentation was in memory of Andrew Tallon (1969-2018).
The agenda is available here. The minutes can be consulted here.
Presentations from participants
- Overview of Europeana Generic Services 2019 call - Krzysztof Nichczynski DG CNECT/G2
- Horizon 2020 - Albert Gauthier, DG CNECT/G2
- The new Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market and cultural heritage - Giorgio Mongiat, DG CNECT/I2
- Summary of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 - Maciej HOFMAN, DG EAC/D1
- Updates from Finland’s Presidency of the Council of the EU - Minna Karvonen, Finland Representative
- Overview and status of the RightsStatements.org project - Patrick Peiffer, Luxembourg Representative
- Updates from the operator on the progress on implementation of Europeana DSI-4 - Victor-Jan Vos, Head of Programme & Network of Europeana Foundation
- Presentation from the Sub-group on Europeana: Update on the ongoing Sub-group deliberations regarding the strategy of the Europeana Initiative 2020+ - Merete Sanderhoff and Ana Alvarez, Sub-group members
- Update on the 3D content in Europeana task force, Europeana Archaeology and the Sharing New Perspectives projects - Kate Fernie, Chair of the Europeana 3D Task Force
- Presentation from Europeana Aggregators: Overview of the aggregators landscape - Marco Rendina, Chair of the Europeana Aggregators Forum Steering Group
- Presentation of the Europeana Common Culture generic services project –aiming at coordination and establishing environment for national aggregators - Frederik Truyen, Professor at KU Leuven
- Follow-up to ‘Exposing online the European cultural heritage: the impact of cultural heritage on the digital transformation of the society’ event - Harry Verwayen, Executive Director of Europeana Foundation
- Developing the potential of new technologies for safeguarding and enhanced access to cultural heritage - presentation and UNESCO statement, Louise Haxthausen, UNESCO Representative to the European Union
- Next steps after the Notre Dame fire - Grégory Chaumet, Sorbonne-Paris