Throughout their history, cultural heritage institutions have had two central purposes. They have been charged firstly with preserving artefacts of cultural significance, and secondly, with describing and cataloguing these artefacts in a way that makes them accessible to a variety of audiences, from experienced researchers to the general public. The advent of the widespread digitization of cultural heritage collections has significant implications for institutions that hold these types of collections. The twin purposes of such institutions have continued to be important. Both digital preservation and access present challenges for owners of cultural heritage collections.
The issues that surround access are complex and far-reaching. Many of these issues are not unique to digital cultural heritage, but cultural heritage raises specific questions about supporting access to cultural heritage collections and individual artefacts.
The group has a long experience in developing original methods and tools to support the user in knowledge discovery and exploration through digital cultural collections. In particular:
- digital library systems
- digital archive systems
- metadata and interoperability
- user engagement
- user generated content
Contact Person
Maristella Agosti
maristella.agostiunipd.it
http://www.dei.unipd.it/~agosti/
Collaborations
Trinity College Dublin (IE); Graz University of Technology (AT); University of Sheffield (UK); University of Duisburg-Essen (DE); University of Basel (CH); University of Athens (GR); University of Bari “Aldo Moro” (IT); Sapienza University of Rome (IT); University of Bologna (IT); Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI), Italian National Research Council (CNR), Pisa (IT).