This document discusses the digitization of cultural heritage in Europe. It provides an overview of the Digital Agenda for Europe initiative and its goals of improving access to cultural content and creating a legal framework for digitizing works. A key part of this effort is Europeana, the EU digital library, which has over 30 million digitized objects and aims to have all public domain masterpieces available online by 2015. The document also reviews funding programs that support digitization, coordination efforts between member states, and survey results indicating that while about 17% of collections on average are currently digitized, over 50% still need to be digitized.

1. Digital Agenda for Europe
Value of newspapers as a source of cultural heritage
Final Europeana Newspapers Project's Workshop
London, 29 September 2014
Krzysztof Nichczynski
European Commission
DG CONNECT
Unit G.2 – Creativity
krzysztof.nichczynski@ec.europa.eu
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2. Digital Agenda for Europe
One of the 7 flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 strategy
- 101 specific actions, including 31 legal proposals
A vibrant digital
single market
Fast and ultra fast
Internet access
Using ICT to help society
Promotion of our shared
European cultural heritage
through new technologies
Interoperabilit
y
and standards
Trust and
security
Research and
development
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3. Objectives
 reply to Europe’s main societal changes and offer
Europeans a better quality of life, e.g. through
easier access to cultural content,
 create a legal framework to facilitate the
digitisation and dissemination of cultural works in
Europe,
 Europeana - the EU public digital library - should
be strengthened,
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4. Cultural heritage - digitised, preserved and on line
 digitisation as a moral obligation,
 easier democratic access to culture,
 promotion of richness and diversity of EU culture,
 helps cultural institutions to carry out their mission of
giving access and preserving our heritage,
 digitised material can be re-used for developing new
content (creative industries, education, tourism),
Newspapers are of enormous historical
and cultural value and should
contribute accordingly
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5. Responsibilities
 Member States:
• provide most of the funding for digitisation ,
• Take part in the policy debate and implement
decisions taken jointly at European level,
• contribute to the development of Europeana,
 Cultural institutions
• drive the creation of Europeana and provide digitised
content,
 Commission (DG CONNECT):
• support through legislative, coordination as well as
funding actions,
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6. Legislative actions
 Recommendation on digitisation and online accessibility of
cultural material and digital preservation (2011/711/EU)
• Set of measures and framework for action for cultural institutions with
ideas as to how to tackle a number of problems in the area. MS report
on implementation every 24 months,
 Revised directive on the reuse of public sector information
(2003/98/EC)
• extension of the scope of the directive to include certain cultural
institutions such as libraries (including university libraries), museums
and archives,
 Orphan works Directive (2012/28/EU)
• legal framework governing the lawful, cross-border online access to
orphan works contained in libraries and archives
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7. Coordination actions and policy collaboration
 Member States Expert Group on Digitisation and Digital
Preservation (MSEG):
• monitors progress on the implementation of the
Commission recommendation on digitisation,
• forum for exchange of information and good practices,
• monitoring of developments concerning innovative
reuse of digital cultural material,
 Cinema Expert Group/Subgroup film heritage:
• exchange information and discuss best practices related
to film heritage,
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8. Funding actions
Various funding actions under CIP ICT PSP, FP7, H2020 and
CEF,
•CIP – main achievements are enhancement of the Europeana
platform,
•FP7 – e.g. research to innovatively interact with cultural
heritage objects; technologies and tools in the area of 3D,
•H2020 (Societal challenge 6) – covering areas such as
advanced 3D modeling and development of new technologies to
enhance the analysis of cultural resources,
•CEF – Europeana identified for funding as one of DSIs,
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9. Europeana – Europe's digital library, archive
& museum
www.europeana.eu
 Access point to the cultural heritage,
 Hub for the creative industries, which already account
for ca. 4% of EU GDP and jobs,
 Over 30m objects,
 All public domain masterpieces accessible by 2015,
 Contributed strongly to the development and
implementation of standards and interoperability,
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10. Europeana – Europe's digital library, archive & museum
• More openess
• open government licences
• More transparency
• Open data portals
• More reusability
• Open, machine-readable formats
• Downwards trend on charging
Wider scope
• cultural institutions (libraries, archives, museums)
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11. Where are we in digitisation?
ENUMERATE core survey (replies from almost 1.400 institutions)
• ~87% of cultural heritage institutions have a digital
collection,
• ~36 % of the institutions have a written digitisation
strategy,
• ~17% of the collection is on average currently
digitised*,
• ~52% still needs to be digitised.
*The actual percentage of the digitisation level of all cultural heritage in Europe will be
smaller. The exact European heritage digitisation percentage cannot be calculated
based on the current information.
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12. Thank you for your
attention!
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