Category Archives: oa.ch

WorldFAIR Project (D13.2) Cultural Heritage Image Sharing Recommendations Report | Zenodo

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract:  Deliverable 13.2 for the WorldFAIR Project’s Cultural Heritage Work Package (WP13). Although the cultural heritage sector has only recently begun to think of traditional gallery, library, archival and museum (‘GLAM’) collections as data, long established practices guiding the management and sharing of information resources has aligned the domain well with the FAIR principles for research data, evidenced in complementary workflows and standards that support discovery, access, reuse, and persistence. As explored in the previous report by Work Package 13 for the WorldFAIR Project, D13.1 Practices and policies supporting cultural heritage image sharing platforms, memory institutions are in an important position to influence cross-domain data sharing practices and raise critical questions about why and how those practices are implemented.

Deliverable 13.2 aims to build on our understanding of what it means to support FAIR in the sharing of image data derived from GLAM collections. This report looks at previous efforts by the sector towards FAIR alignment and presents 5 recommendations designed to be implemented and tested at the DRI that are also broadly applicable to the work of the GLAMs. The recommendations are ultimately a roadmap for the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) to follow in improving repository services, as well as a call for continued dialogue around ‘what is FAIR?’ within the cultural heritage research data landscape.

WorldFAIR Project (D13.2) Cultural Heritage Image Sharing Recommendations Report –

Posted on by
Reply

“Deliverable 13.2 for the WorldFAIR Project’s Cultural Heritage Work Package (WP13). Although the cultural heritage sector has only recently begun to think of traditional gallery, library, archival and museum (‘GLAM’) collections as data, long established practices guiding the management and sharing of information resources has aligned the domain well with the FAIR principles for research data, evidenced in complementary workflows and standards that support discovery, access, reuse, and persistence. As explored in the previous report by Work Package 13 for the WorldFAIR Project, D13.1 Practices and policies supporting cultural heritage image sharing platforms, memory institutions are in an important position to influence cross-domain data sharing practices and raise critical questions about why and how those practices are implemented.

Deliverable 13.2 aims to build on our understanding of what it means to support FAIR in the sharing of image data derived from GLAM collections. This report looks at previous efforts by the sector towards FAIR alignment and presents 5 recommendations designed to be implemented and tested at the DRI that are also broadly applicable to the work of the GLAMs. The recommendations are ultimately a roadmap for the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) to follow in improving repository services, as well as a call for continued dialogue around ‘what is FAIR?’ within the cultural heritage research data landscape.

The report is available on Zenodo.”

Kein Open Access: Proteste gegen Lizenzgebühren für Reproduktionen italienischer staatlicher Kulturgüter – Archivalia

Posted on by
Reply

From Google’s English:  “Many scientific organizations in Italy are protesting against a decree of the Minister of Education of April 11, 2023 ( text of the norm ) and a short-sighted policy that sees cultural heritage as “just a lemon to squeeze”. Scientific publications must also be rewarded….”

David Roskies’ Yiddish literature archive now online – The Forward

Posted on by
Reply

“This week marked the official unveiling of a new, freely accessible Yiddish archive composed of previously unpublished teaching materials, scholarship, literature, notes and ephemera from the collections of Yiddish literature scholar David G. Roskies.

All Things Yiddish: The Lerer Roskes Archive is named after the affectionate Yiddish title given to Roskies by his students, Lerer Roskes, or “Teacher” Roskies. Sponsored by the Naomi Foundation, the online launch event was a chance for Roskies, alongside a panel of his peers, to introduce the archive and offer a digital tour of some of its contents. The event was moderated by the executive director of the Naomi Foundation, Lindsey Bodner….”

SAOA Surpasses 1 Million Pages of Open Access Content | CRL

Posted on by
Reply

“The South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) achieved a major milestone last month, surpassing one million pages in its online collection of free, open access digital content. 

For the past several years, members of the South Asia Open Archives initiative have been working collaboratively to build a robust collection of primary sources for researching, teaching, and learning about South Asia. Following its public launch in October 2019(link is external), SAOA has added hundreds of thousands of pages of newly digitized material from across the region. Now totaling over one-million pages of open-access primary source material, SAOA’s collection includes more than thirty-thousand items in twenty-seven different languages….”

Generative AI Meets Open Culture Tickets, Tue, May 2, 2023 at 10:00 AM | Eventbrite

Posted on by
Reply

“With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been increasing interest in how AI can be used in the description, preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage. While AI promises immense benefits, it also raises important ethical considerations.

In this session, leaders from Internet Archive, Creative Commons, and Wikimedia Foundation will discuss how public interest values can shape the development and deployment of AI in cultural heritage, including how to ensure that AI reflects diverse perspectives, promotes cultural understanding, and respects ethical principles such as privacy and consent.

Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on the future of AI in cultural heritage, and learn how we can work together to create a more equitable and responsible future.”

IFLA Newsletter, April 2023: The Open Access and Culture Issue | International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

Posted on by
Reply

“Libraries give access to and facilitate use of information. Libraries of all types carry out preservation initiatives, build knowledge platforms, and develop programmes and services for the benefit of their users. Yet the ability to undertake these activities is not entirely in the hands of libraries, nor librarians. A key factor in determining what they can and cannot do is copyright law. When copyright law works well, its legal framework enables libraries and supports the vital and unique contribution these institutions and the profession make. A positive example, in the science and education space, is the rise of Open Access (OA). This recognises that the best interests of society are served not by paywalls, but by maximising access, use and re-use. Of course, the transition to OA is far from complete, and key challenges do remain. This edition therefore looks at progress made and what we need to do next, including an article from the team behind IFLA’s latest OA statement, as well as the people working on our OA vocabularies project. There is also a snapshot of just a few of our other volunteer units working to make inclusive open access a reality around the world….”

NEH grant to transform UChicago’s creation and delivery of digital collections and research data – The University of Chicago Library News – The University of Chicago Library

Posted on by
Reply

“The National Endowment for the Humanities is awarding the University of Chicago nearly $1 million to transform UChicago’s creation, stewardship, and delivery of digital collections and research data. Working together, the University of Chicago Library and Division of the Humanities will use the grant to build a new digital structure, UChicagoNode—the core of what will eventually be a network extending and enhancing the practice of digital research at UChicago and around the world. The University is committed to raising an additional $4 million to fulfill the vision for this project.

Treasure troves of more than 200 digital collections exist across the University, but they are found in a wide range of unconnected systems, including several hundred terabytes of digital content held at the Library. UChicagoNode will give researchers a single place to go to discover available digital collections through a unified, open access platform. It will provide a long-term home for content created as part of research and teaching at UChicago, contributed by partners from outside the University, and digitized by the Library. Future scholars will also benefit from UChicagoNode because it will provide an established infrastructure for a diverse range of digital collections and will break down barriers between traditionally siloed datasets. The collections will exist as datasets that can be used with machine analysis, natural language processing, spatial mapping, and other AI-based explorations….”

Europeana Translate Event – How machine translation & multilingual access impacts cultural heritage | Europeana Pro

Posted on by
Reply

“This online event will present the Europeana Translate project outcomes, describe the methodology followed, the results obtained, and the impact of machine translation on improving user experience in the cultural heritage sector. Speakers will also reflect on machine translation and multilinguality in the cultural heritage domain and discuss this from a broader perspective with external insights.

You can expect presentations about the OCCAM (OCR, ClassificAtion & Machine Translation) project by Tom Vanallemeersch; information about the results of the EnrichEuropeana+ project by Sergiu Gordea and Henk Vanstappen, who will explore the automated translations of heritage data in the Bruges’ project Grenzeloos. This will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A where the speakers, joined by some of the Europeana Translate partners, will discuss the theme of machine translation and multilinguality further. Participants will be invited to share questions and perspective on automated translations in the cultural heritage domain and possible challenges for the future….”

A global approach for natural history museum collections | Science

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract:  Over the past three centuries, people have collected objects and specimens and placed them in natural history museums throughout the world. Taken as a whole, this global collection is the physical basis for our understanding of the natural world and our place in it, an unparalleled source of information that is directly relevant to issues as diverse as wildlife conservation, climate change, pandemic preparedness, food security, invasive species, rare minerals, and the bioeconomy (1). Strategic coordination and use of the global collection has the potential to focus future collecting and guide decisions that are relevant to the future of humanity and biodiversity. To begin to map the aggregate holdings of the global collection, we describe here a simple and fast method to assess the contents of any natural history museum, and report results based on our assessment of 73 of the world’s largest natural history museums and herbaria from 28 countries.

From the body of the article:

“Natural history museums have generally operated independently, and no interoperable data structure exists to provide open access to their collective holdings. Because most natural history museum data are not digitally discoverable, the networks of data aggregators have not been able to access these “dark data” …”

 

HBCU Library Alliance Partners with Harvard Library to Expand Access to African American History Collections | Harvard Library

Posted on by
Reply

“The HBCU Library Alliance and Harvard Library are embarking on this project with the shared goal of advancing open, public access to archives and special collections pertaining to African American history. Funds are provided by the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative, which has designated $6 million for this project….”

Call for Participation in a new Working Group on Image Sharing Practices in Cultural Heritage – CODATA, The Committee on Data for Science and Technology

Posted on by
Reply

“Are you a professional working in the Cultural Heritage sector, interested in exploring how your institution or research area could improve the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability of the digital images you collect and create? The DRI is opening a call for participation for a short-term Working Group, which will meet over a 5 month period from January to May 2023, to review and refine a set of recommendations for aligning practices across the Cultural Heritage sector with the FAIR principles for data sharing. The DRI is particularly keen to add members to the Working Group from currently underrepresented regions: South America, Australasia and Africa, though any interested parties should get in touch.

These recommendations are being produced as part of the WorldFAIR Project, a major global collaboration between partners from thirteen countries across Africa, Australasia, Europe, and North and South America.  WorldFAIR will advance the implementation of the FAIR data principles, in particular those for Interoperability, by developing a cross-domain interoperability framework and recommendations for FAIR assessment in a set of eleven disciplines or cross-disciplinary research areas. The DRI is leading the WorldFAIR case study for Cultural Heritage….”

Positioning software source code as digital heritage for sustainable development | UNESCO

Posted on by
Reply

“The second annual symposium on the theme “Software Source Code as documentary heritage and an enabler for sustainable development” organized by UNESCO and the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) on 7 February 2023, took stock of the initiative’s achievements over the previous few years.

Throughout the conference, five major dimensions of software source code were explored:

as documentary heritage and as an enabler for digital skills education.
as a first-class research object in the open science ecosystem.
as an enabler for innovation and sharing in industry and administration.
its perspectives on long term preservation.
technological advances allowing massive analysis of software source code….”

Positioning software source code as digital heritage for sustainable development | UNESCO

Posted on by
Reply

“The second annual symposium on the theme “Software Source Code as documentary heritage and an enabler for sustainable development” organized by UNESCO and the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) on 7 February 2023, took stock of the initiative’s achievements over the previous few years.

Throughout the conference, five major dimensions of software source code were explored:

as documentary heritage and as an enabler for digital skills education.
as a first-class research object in the open science ecosystem.
as an enabler for innovation and sharing in industry and administration.
its perspectives on long term preservation.
technological advances allowing massive analysis of software source code….”

Explore how Europeana Subtitled increased access to audiovisual heritage | Europeana Pro

Posted on by
Reply

“Europeana Subtitled gathered seven major national broadcasters and audiovisual archives from seven European countries to provide high-quality audiovisual materials to Europeana. The project combined AI technology and audiovisual cultural heritage to produce high-quality closed captions and English subtitles for local video content, and created a platform to allow organisations to run crowdsourcing campaigns to revise captions using state of the art editing tools. 

Europeana Subtitled also supported cultural heritage professionals with the use of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and machine translation (MT) technologies in the cultural sector through an online training suite consisting of video tutorials, documentation and guidelines, and worked with teachers and museum educators to create learning resources with audiovisual content. 

Finally, the project engaged audiences through crowdsourcing events and editorial activities on the Europeana website, in particular, through the ‘Broadcasting Europe’ page and ‘Mass-media and propaganda’ online exhibition….

The Subtitled content is publicly available and videos can be enjoyed directly on the Europeana website, while you can also access freely reusable content with more than 3,000 records in the Public Domain….”