Cultural Heritage in Regional Networks

Objective

REGNET aims to set up a functional network of service centres in Europe, which provides IT-services dedicated to Cultural Heritage organisations and will be an enabler of eBusiness activities for CH organizations. Multi media industries enabling the production of electronic publications will be integrated. It will provide access and use of digital data (scientific and cultural) as well as of physical goods as provided by museum shops. The four players within the network are the content providers, the service centre operators, the system developers and end users. The content providers (museums, libraries, archives etc.) will provide access (via wired and wireless communication) to their digital contents, services and products and offer them to their clients (B2C). In return they can use the REGNET facilities for multimedia productions and data base management, or cooperate with other REGNET partners during the creation of data bases, generation of multimedia products or creation of a virtual exhibition (B2B). The service centre operators will generate income by providing the technical infrastructure (software/hardware) to content providers and other partners within the REGNET network. They offer additional IT-services and consultancies. And the system developers are selling the REGNET system to other cultural service centres and content providers. They implement additional components for the REGNET software system (additional "nodes" like an "exhibition creator", etc), and will generate income via licence fees for the REGNET system. For the end user the system will offer easy and wide access to cultural heritage data information and the purchase of CH related goods and services at one point, with stress on the production of personalized goods (e.g. CDROM) and services.

Objectives:
Main objectives of REGNET are:
· Development of a service infrastructure which enables business to business (B2B) transactions as well as business to consumer (B2C) transactions
· Development and use of existing - locally held - electronic catalogues (OPACS: Online Public Access Catalogues) referring to cultural & scientific objects contained in libraries, museums, archives, and galleries, as well as to goods and services.
· Integration of a distributed search and retrieval system to achieve a "virtual union" catalogue of all OPACS and product/service catalogues held locally
· Definition of Information Products and Services including necessary "supply chains" and the connected business processes and functions to deliver digital and physical goods (to provide high quality services an editorial committee will be installed)
· Setup of a legal framework necessary for all business transaction on the B2B and B2C level (containing payment features, copyright systems, authentication control, etc)
· Integration and test of existing components, standards, and methods in the field of distributed search and retrieval and e-commerce
· Access to the REGNET-WEB services with mobile devices via de facto standard protocols (such as wireless application protocol, WAP etc).
· Run a trial service (demonstration phase) which should be followed by a regular service.


Work description:
The technical (research and development) objectives of REGNET are:
· Development of the "REGNET building blocks (nodes)" which are necessary to build up an appropriate infrastructure to access to catalogues (containing cultural & scientific data, product & service descriptions, etc) in the Cultural Heritage domain.
Access to the "REGNET System" via wired communication lines as well as via wireless mode (e.g. using the wireless application protocol WAP).
The building blocks (nodes) of the REGNET system consist of:
· REGNET - Portal (access to remote data entry, distributed search, e-business)
· REGNET - Cultural Heritage Data Management (search over distributed meta data repositories connected to stores containing digital content)
· REGNET - eBusiness Data Management (e-commerce system allowing access to distributed product/service catalogues)
· REGNET - Ontology (Metadata) Subsystem (containing the specifications of all metadata needed in the Cultural Heritage domain as well as in the e-business domain; this subsystem also stores specifications of workflows and process related metadata)
· REGNET - Electronic Publishing Subsystem (allowing the production of personalised digital products based on standardised meta data and workflows)

The demonstration objectives of REGNET are:
· Test the technical (hardware/software) infrastructure of the REGNET system
· Validate the developed services offered to end users and content providers
· Test the operation of at least three Cultural Service Centres

Milestones:
M1: State of the Art, Results: documentation plans (preparation of content); infrastructure to run the trial service; legal framework
M2: System implementation, Results: Content and products ready; System is tested; contracts and agreements are signed; start of market activities; Training of REGNET administrators
M3: End of system validation, Results: infrastructure at service centres ready
M4: Trial Service ends, Results: Regular service network
M5: REGNET established.

Programme(s)

• FP5-IST - Programme for research, technological development and demonstration on a "User-friendly information society, 1998-2002"

Topic(s)

• 2000-3.1.4 - Access to digital collections of cultural and scientific content

Funding Scheme

Coordinator

Participants (22)