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ANALYSIS


CULTURAL COOPERATION BRINGS DIGITAL ACCESS TO HIDDEN TREASURES WORLDWIDE


Friedel Grant looks at some new web-based initiatives that provide virtual access to the treasures of art galleries, libraries and museums around the world


T


he Google Art project launched in February is a dazzling virtual tour through the galleries of some of the world’s most famous museums. It allows all of us to get a larger-than-


life view of Renoir’s brushstrokes and zoom in on the intricate scenes of 16th century life in Pieter Bruegel’s The Harvesters. The display is the latest example of how technology and innovation is bringing new life to the world’s cultural treasures, and it’s clear that people want more. More institutions participating. More content. More diversity of objects represented. At Europeana, we’re pleased to see such a


strong interest in cultural heritage as we work to unite digitised content from across Europe. The new Europeana Libraries project, for example, will make over five million digital


books, texts, photographs and films from 19 of Europe’s leading research and university libraries freely available online over the next two years.


Participants include some of Europe’s


most prestigious universities and research institutes, such as the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, Trinity College Dublin and Lund University, and the content is diverse. It ranges from books scanned in partnerships between Google and major libraries to Spanish civil war photographs, movies documenting the history of medical science and the handwritten letters of philosopher Immanuel Kant. By bringing all of this together in one searchable resource, people will be able to discover a wider range of collections and types of materials in one place than has so far been possible.


The Europeana Libraries project will


also offer full-text searchable content to Europeana, creating an experience for the book world that will parallel the ability to get an inch-by-inch view of the paintings digitised by Google Art. The study of texts and books will be taken beyond the simple scanned page to a whole new level of interaction, allowing users to drill down to individual words and phrases. This quest to offer a better quality and depth


of content is not the only similarity between Google Art and Europeana Libraries. Both projects are symbolic of a bigger movement to make culture more available to everyone. The time has come for our shared treasures to be brought out into the open, not kept behind security barriers or locked away in archives, inaccessible to all but a privileged few.


PUTTING RESEARCH DATA INTO THE CLOUD


David Utting of JISC shares how £12.5 million from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is being invested to give opportunities to UK researchers to store, manage and use their data using cloud computing


Reliable technology is fundamental when managing high volumes of technical datasets. If your laptop is lost or stolen it can cause a great deal of misery – in some cases, a lifetime of work is lost. Working in a trusted cloud means researchers can save time and resources. The aim is to have software that can help manage data, store it and enable researchers to work with colleagues all in one place without switching between systems. The latest phase of the Universities


Modernisation Fund in the UK intends to boost the ability of universities to research and work in the cloud. The aim is to provide universities with the advice, guidance and support they need to make the best use of the many opportunities that the cloud has to offer. This may be by working with their existing infrastructures or, as their current


10 Research Information APR/MAY 2011


contracts need to be renewed, give them access to a range of virtual cloud services, including data management and storage services at discounted prices. Over the next year we are setting up a national broker service to negotiate between universities and commercial suppliers in the procurement of shared virtual services and data management capacity. This will give universities a range of options to suit their individual needs. This is not just about using remote data centres, but also about the sort of cloud-based applications that researchers would find helpful to maximise their research outputs. These new applications should help researchers save time and reduce levels of bureaucracy that exist when working across different systems. It will also give


them more time to focus on their grant bids and the business of researching rather the administration behind the research. Experts at The Digital Curation Centre


will work to help researchers and information professionals develop their skills in this area. JISC will also be working with network and library professionals through organisations such as SCONUL to deliver additional services that improve the management of electronic resources for researchers and their support teams and the administration of a research programme throughout its whole lifecycle. This should make the process more efficient and cost effective to manage. The vision is for researchers to work


from any location in a trusted cloud with applications and services specifically supporting their research data management needs. It is a challenge but there is a desire from the UK’s research community to see it happen and a willingness from partners and universities to adopt such an approach.


David Utting is director of service relationships at the UK’s JISC


www.researchinformation.info


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