IMPACT: Improving Access to Text

“IMPACT is a project funded by the European Commission. It aims to significantly improve access to historical text and to take away the barriers that stand in the way of the mass digitization of the European cultural heritage.” (text published on http://www.impact-project.eu)

Hildelies Balk – Programme Manager IMPACT – further explains:

IMPACT is a European project that aims to speed up the process and enhance the quality of mass digitization in Europe. The IMPACT research will significantly improve digital access to historical printed text by innovating Optical Character Recognition software and language technology. IMPACT will also build capacity in mass digitization across Europe.The fifteen partners (seven libraries, six research institutes and two private sector companies) together form a Centre of Competence that will share best practices and expertise with the MLA community.

Fact sheet

· IMPACT is supported by the European Community under the FP7 ICT Work Programme. The project is coordinated by the National Library of the Netherlands (KB)

· Project type: Large-scale Integrating Project

· Start date: 1 January 2008

· Duration: 48 months

· EU funding: € 11 500 000

· Contact: impact@kb.nl

· Web site: www.impact-project.eu

More Information

The concept and project objectives are described extensively in the IMPACT Description of Work, that forms the basis of the projects’ contract with the EC. A public version of this document is available from the IMPACT Project Office impact@kb.nl .

Do you want to know how things are going? Curious about the general state of affairs, or which prototypes have been made available? The recently produced half year report gives a full update of all developments (and includes pictures of involved people – nice!). It can sent by request.

 

European Film Gateway – A Short Intro

Some more information about EFG, one of the projects relating to Europeana – the European digital library, museum and archive:

“EFG – The European Film Gateway is a 3-years project which started on 1st September 2008. It will develop an online portal, providing direct access to about 790.000 digital objects including films, photos, posters, drawings, sound material and text documents.” AND: “The European Film Gateway will be linked to the Europeana portal (…) The participation of the EDL Foundation as a project partner will ensure the appropriate cooperation with Europeana, which the Foundation oversees.” – This is how EFG introduces itself on its website.

The Work Packages have titles such as:

User needs and service requirements

Technical interoperability and access

Content enrichment and semantic interoperability

Service implementation and operation, web platform

IPR management and administration

Legal and organisational governance, sustainability planning

Later this month all partners will meet to attend the kick-off meeting of the project. Speaking of which… The envisioned central access point to film archival content will be created with the help of at least 22 partners and 16 content partners. DRIVER (Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research) will support the creation of the gateway technically. The content will be based both on catalogues as on film content.

The project is co-ordinated by Georg Eckes, project manager at the Deutsches Filminstitut.

This photo of Mister Eckes was taken last April at the international working conference ‘Economies of the Commons – Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online’, The Netherlands (blog where I found this picture)

Further information:

http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/index.php

Or you can download Eckes’ EFG presentation which he held at an Econtent information day – NB: it is in German

 

EDL Gets Local and Regional Dimensions

EDLocal – The Start of A New Project

From next week onwards also local and regional cultural institutions from across Europe will work with EDL Foundation. Together they will find ways through which the institutions can easily make their content available to Europeana. Or to use the official terminology – the projects aims to improve the interoperability of the digital content held by these institutions and to make it accessible through the Europeana service of the European Digital Library and to other services.

Okay let’s think about this…All these different institutions hold an enormeous amount of digital resources. In fact, they give access to an amazing amount of material of all types, cultures and languages. And now with EDLocal access will also given via Europeana. Let me give you a figure: EDLocal will make over 20 million items available to Europeana.

A few more details

EDLocal is a so-called ‘Best Practice Network’, an eContentplus project that falls under the digital libraries inititiative. The project will run for three years. It builds on existing multiplier networks of local institutions to bring together a consortium that represents 27 countries with broad ranging experience of the cultural sector, digital libraries, standards and aggregation services.

The expected results include the establishment of a network of regional repositories that are highly interoperable with Europeana, an integrated Europeana-EDLocal prototype service and the development of thematic areas for Europeana services which integrate content from both the national and the local/regional level.

The element of “improving interoperability” entails the use of Europeana’s infrastructures, tools and standards (OAI-PMH repositories and Europeana Metadata Application Profiles initially, but moving forward to semantic web technologies later).

Rob Davies (MDR Partners) is Scientific Coordinator of the EDLocal Best Practice Network. (NB: The photo of mister Davies has been copied from this page)

About “Best Practice Networks“

The EU explains on one of her websites that these networks “should combine a consensus building and awareness raising function with implementation in a real-life context of the solutions discussed. Their main objective is to promote the adoption of standards and specifications for making digital content in Europe more accessible and usable.” Continue reading at the FAQ 2008 page of eContentplus projects