:: General (heritage informatics, e-culture, etc) ::

• Bringing the past to life for the citizen
  A new proposal in the Grand Challenges in Computing programme. "Many people have an undeniable fascination with the past. Evidence ranges broadly from popular film, novel, TV and theatre to the influence of the past on tourists' choices.
  There are in excess of 10,000 museums and visitor centres in the UK, most dealing with aspects of the past. The contents of these centres include the preserved evidence of past historic environments and events and as such have stories of their own to tell.
  The vision is that the citizen should be able to witness events of the past replayed interactively, but as more than just a re-creation, allowing the viewer to explore and discover more about the circumstances and motivations of the participants.
  The viewer would be able to link the reconstruction to the modern day evidence if they so choose and receive explanations of the differing socio-political perspectives which are relevant to the events.
  Much of the evidence of cultural significance relates to contentious material - conflict and religion - which must be interpreted in context. Modern day observers add current ethical, philosophical and social perspectives.
  Cultural heritage professionals are often, rightly, loath to settle on definitive reconstructions or interpretations of events or artefacts, presenting viable alternatives instead.
  Many are suspicious that popularization ('Disney-fication') misrepresents the past in the interest of a more entertaining and profitable re-interpretation. The cultural heritage professionals' emphasis is most often on preservation and curatorship.
  Computer scientists have found cultural heritage a rich vein of interesting data and potential applications, but they tend to look for value added from the digital records. At times additional uses have appeared to cultural heritage professionals as crass and insensitive, failing to address the real requirements of their disciplines and spreading more confusion than light.
  This truly multi- and inter-disciplinary challenge has many intermediate steps to the long-term vision and many technological challenges on route, within a set of sub-areas of computer science.
  Computer science has already much to offer to the applications of discovery, recording, analysis, cataloguing, reconstruction, interpretation, story-telling and communication about physical artefacts and records of the past.
  The domain is characterised by a huge body of archived data in incompatible formats and where the data collection cannot be repeated since the sources are lost or destroyed, by war, terrorism, the ravages of time or archaeological excavation.
  The Grand Challenge is to extend these uses and add functionality that cannot be currently provided."
  » http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.4724
• The American Association for History and Computing (AAHC)
  "The American Association for History and Computing (AAHC) is dedicated to the reasonable and productive marriage of history and computer technology for teaching, researching and representing history through scholarship and public history. To support and promote these goals, the AAHC sponsors a number of activities, including an annual meeting, annual prizes, an electronic journal—the Journal of the American Association for History and Computing (JAHC), and a continuing publication series."
  » http://theaahc.org
• DigiCULT
  "Benefiting the Cultural Heritage sector, through monitoring and assessing existing and emerging technologies that provide opportunities to optimise the development, access to, and preservation of Europe's rich cultural and scientific heritage, within the emerging digital cultural economy."
  Most valuable for its 'Research Themes' ('Towards a Cultural Heritage RTD Roadmap') and for its excellent reports (see DigiCULT entry in Publications, below).
  » http://www.digicult.info
• European Commission > Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development > Information Society Technologies > Strategic Objective 2.5.10 'Access to and preservation of cultural and scientific resources'
  "Leading-edge information and communication technologies provide manifold opportunities for the use of Europe's rich cultural resources. They open up new ways to preserve, store, describe and discover the content of archives, libraries and museums and to reconstruct and visualise artefacts and archaeological sites. Innovative systems and tools, broadly accessible through online applications, enable new experiences for interacting with culture and for cultural expression." The objectives of the programme are to "make it easy for people to find, understand and experience their cultural heritage through digital libraries and virtual visits to the past; rescue and restore our film and audiovisual heritage of the 20th century; keep today's digital content alive in the future." Includes a comprehensive list of all e-heritage projects funded under the European Commission's IST 5th & 6th Framework Programme, sorted alphabetically by acronym.
  » http://cordis.europa.eu/ist/digicult/index.html
• EPOCH (European Research Network on Excellence in Processing Open Cultural Heritage)
  "The overall objective of the network is to provide a clear organisational and disciplinary framework for increasing the effectiveness of work at the interface between technology and the cultural heritage of human experience represented in monuments, sites and museums. This framework will encompass all the various work processes and flows of information from archaeological discovery to education and dissemination. It will allow identification of where the bottlenecks in the end-to-end process are currently located and this in turn will allow prioritisation of where the research priorities should lie."
  Funded by the European Commission under the Community's Sixth Framework Programme.
  » http://www.epoch-net.org
• Virtual Heritage: information portal for technology in cultural, natural and world heritage
  "Virtual Heritage is the oldest and largest repository of documents, news and information relating to heritage and technology. Operating since 1997, it has been designed to be an authoritative information portal for the utilisation of technology for the education, interpretation, conservation and preservation of Natural, Cultural and World Heritage." Seems to have been most active in 2000-2001, though still publishes conference announcements and the occasional news article. Useful repository of scholarly articles from 2000 to 2001.
  » http://www.virtualheritage.net
• European Museums' Information Institute (EMII)
  "a network of key cultural organisations working together to promote the exchange of best practice and the effective use of standards in information management among European member states and associated countries."
  » http://www.emii.org
• Europeana
  Still under (re-)development at the time of writing (7th March 2009).
  "Europeana – the European digital library, museum and archive – is a 2-year project that began in July 2007. It will produce a prototype website giving users direct access to some 2 million digital objects, including film material, photos, paintings, sounds, maps, manuscripts, books, newspapers and archival papers. The prototype will be launched in November 2008 by Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
  The digital content will be selected from that which is already digitised and available in Europe’s museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. The prototype aims to have representative content from all four of these cultural heritage domains, and also to have a broad range of content from across Europe.
  The development route, site architecture and technical specifications are all published as deliverable outcomes of the project. After the launch of the Europeana prototype, the project's final task is to recommend a business model that will ensure the sustainability of the website. It will also report on the further research and implementation needed to make Europe’s cultural heritage fully interoperable and accessible through a truly multilingual service. The intention is that by 2010 the Europeana portal will give everybody direct access to well over 6 million digital sounds, pictures, books, archival records and films."
  » http://www.europeana.eu/portal/
  
• Archives & Museum Informatics
  » http://www.archimuse.com
• Museum Informatics Project
  "MIP is a collaborative effort at the University of California, Berkeley to coordinate the application of information technology in museums and other organized, non-book collections. MIP staff work with faculty, collections managers, and curators to develop data models, system architectures, and demonstration and production systems as bases for coordinated and integrated approaches to the application of information technology in museums and archives. MIP assists museums and archives to broaden access to primary academic collections and data by scholars, students and the public."
  » http://www.mip.berkeley.edu
• Culture24: The National Virtual Museum
  Replacement (from summer 2008) for 24 Hour Museum
  » http://www.culture24.org.uk
  
• Museums Computer Group
  A very active and very important UK group for all "museum, gallery, archive and HE professionals who work with computers and new technologies. ... ICT now plays a major part in new museum projects across a wide spectrum of disciplines and departments. The mcg provides a forum for debate and a source of practical help through the possibilities it provides. ... The mcg also organises the annual UK Museums On The Web conference, aimed at museum web site managers and those working with web content in museums." Highly recommended!
  » http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
• The New Media Consortium
  » http://www.nmc.org/keyword/museum
• The Museum Computer Network (USA)
  "The Museum Computer Network is a nonprofit organization of professionals dedicated to fostering the cultural aims of museums through the use of computer technologies. We serve individuals and institutions wishing to improve their means of developing, managing, and conveying museum information through the use of automation. We support cooperative efforts that enable museums to be more effective at creating and disseminating cultural and scientific knowledge as represented by their collections and related documentation."
  » http://www.mcn.edu
• Cultural Heritage Imaging
  "Cultural Heritage Imaging is dedicated to creating and leveraging two and three dimensional state of the art digital imaging techniques in order to document, and assist others to document, culturally significant objects and places for the enhancement of knowledge and education worldwide. CHI offers the tools, methods, and training resources to accelerate the adoption of robust digital documentation practices by cultural heritage institutions and professionals. More concisely, CHI offers digital documentation of cultural heritage materials and support for the people and institutions who care about them."
  » http://www.c-h-i.org
• KURATOR
  "KURATOR is a curatorial agency and research platform established in 2004. It operates at the intersection between culture and technology, and has a particular interest in an emerging discourse and practice that links curating with software and networks."
  » http://www.kurator.org
  
• Electronic Museum
  A personal project by Mike Ellis, Solutions Architect at Eduserv, and formerly website manager for The Science Museum in London. "The Electronic Museum is a web resource for technical managers, developers, authors or any other professionals who are using the web, kiosk or similar technologies in a museum context."