The DCA project was a digitization initiative funded by the European Union's CIP-ICT Policy Support Programme. It involved 25 partners from 12 European countries working to digitize over 27,000 contemporary artworks and 2,000 contextual documents from 21 content providers. The goals of the project were to digitize the artworks for inclusion in Europeana and identify best practices for digitization, metadata attribution, long-term preservation, and aggregation. Digitized content was aggregated through various national and domain-specific aggregators to Europeana.

1. DCA is co-funded by the CIP-ICT Policy Support Programme of the European Union

2. THE DCA PROJECT
 Pilot B project in the EU CIP-ICT PSP programme
 PACKED vzw – Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage (BE)
 25 partners from 12 countries
 21 content providers – European museums and other art
institutions
 4 technical partners
 1/1/11 – 30/6/13
 Budget 3.947.286
 Funding of 50%
DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion
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Kick-off meeting in Brussels, january 2011

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DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion
Frissiras Museum (Athens), MMCA - Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (Thessaloniki), National
Gallery-Alexandros Soutzos Museum (Athens), National Gallery of Iceland (Reykjavik), RAM - Reykjavík
Art Museum (Reykjavik), Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (Riga), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
(Rotterdam), NIMk - Netherlands Institute for Media Art (Amsterdam), WRO Art Center (Wroclaw), Ars
Electronica (Linz), argos - centre for art and media (Brussels), MAC’s - Museum of Contemporary Art of
the French Community of Belgium (Grand-Hornu), Mu.ZEE – Collection of the province of West Flanders
and the City of Ostend (Ostend), Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels), MMSU - Museum of
Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka (Rijeka), EMAF – European Media Art Festival (Osnabrück), HfG –
Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe), transmediale (Berlin)

4. THE GOAL (I)
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DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion
Digitisation workshop
Brussels, february 2011
“Digitising European Contemporary Artworks and aggregating the
created digital reproductions to Europeana – the single access
point of Europe’s cultural heritage”
 Digitising works made after 1945
 Around 27.000 contemporary artworks
 And 2.000 contextual documents
 # types: drawing, multimedia-installation, sculpture …

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DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion

6.  Not only ‘digitising for Europeana’ according to the motto
‘digitise once for all purposes’
 Identification of best practices for
 Digitisation (WP4)
 Metadata attribution (WP3)
 Long term preservation (WP6)
 Aggregation (WP5)
 And in some cases
 Collection management system?
 Rights management?
 Online (collection) platform?
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DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion
THE GOAL (II)

7. PREPARATION
Assessment of expertise
present with the partners by
means of detailed
questionnaire:
 Knowledge of digital formats
 Metadata practices
 Long term preservation
policy
 …
DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion
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8. PREPARATION
Template of digitisation plan
Completed based on own
workflow + digitisation
guidelines
 Tech parameters
 Timing
 Handling
 …
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9. PREPARATION
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Making a planning based
on detailed
questionnaire + status
analog materials

10. MONITORING
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11. AGGREGATION
 No dedicated content portal or single aggregator
 Showcase of DCA content through implementation of the
Europeana API on the DCA project website
Distributed aggregation to Europeana through
 DCA-MINT by NTUA (6 partners)
 GAMA – Gateway to Archives of Media Art (5 partners)
 National aggregators (6 partners: Austria, Spain, the
Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia)
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DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion

12. http://www.dca-project.eu
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http://www.dca-project.eu/deliverables

15. SHARING KNOWLEDGE
 Public deliverables available through the project website
Additionally:
 Template for digitisation plan
 Monitoring sheet
Also available for re-use in other digitisation projects
-> write to info@packed.be to get your copy
DCA wiki: contribute your own expertise and experiences with
digitisation on http://wiki.dca-project.eu/
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DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion

16. DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion
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http://wiki.dca-project.eu/

17. Thanks for your attention!
www.digitisingcontemporaryart.eu
www.dca-project.eu
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DCAisco-fundedbytheCIP-ICTPolicySupportProgrammeoftheEuropeanUnion