From: Patrick SCHOULLER 
Subject: 
 programme CIP TIC / Appel en cours / Offres de partenariats  :
PME  Irlandaise - ministère éducation de Malte - bibliothèque portugaise

Madame, monsieur
Dans le cadre de l'appel en cours du CIP TIC, nous avons reçu des offres de
partenaires potentiels

1) Une entreprise irlandaise 

An expression of interest from an Irish SME, eMedia, a 3D Medical
Visualisations
company. 

eMedia is a 3D Medical Visualisations company specialising in assisting
universities, hospitals, private medical companies and medical training
institutions with their medical visualisation and eLearning needs.
As several members of our team have previous involvement in Leonardo da Vinci
projects, eMedia is an ideal partner for suitable Health, Digital Library or
Open Innovation ICT PSP project proposals.
We are looking for lead-partners who may be interested in collaborating
with an
energetic, progressive and flexible company for the purposes of bringing about
new ideas within the field of medical innovation in Europe.

Our skills

• 3D Medical Animations
• 3D Virtual Environments
• Story boarding/Concept creation
• Product Visualisations
• eLearning Training Content

NB: Nous avons la capacité d'effectuer nos affaires en français aussi bien
qu'en
anglais.



The company is interested in participating as a partner in project proposals
that address objectives within the following three Themes of the 2009 Work
Programme (Call 3):

TTHEME 1: ICT FOR HEALTH, AGEING AND INCLUSION

Objective 1.1: ICT for patient-centred health service
Objective 1.2: Innovative eHealth tools and services in real life
Objective 1.3: ICT for ageing well / independent living
Objective 1.4: e-Accessibility thematic network

THEME 2: DIGITAL LIBRARIES
Objective 2.1: European Digital Library - services
Objective 2.3: European Digital Library – Digitising content for Europeana

THEME 8: OPEN INNOVATION, USER EXPERIENCE AND LIVING LABS
Objective 8.1: Sharing of best practice across European Living Labs involving
SMEs as key user- and provider-participants.

Contact Information

If our skills are relevant to your project proposal, please contact us.

Mr. Mark Campbell, CEO
eMedia Interactive Ltd
Galway
Ireland

Mark.Campbell@eMedia.ie

2)  Le ministère maltais de l'éducation

The Maltese Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth & Sport and the Malta
Information Technology Agency have issued a joint expression of interest for a
project partnership under Call 3 of the CIP - ICT Policy Support Programme,
Digital Libraries – 2.3 Digitising content for Europeana (Pilot B). 

Overview of National Context
The management of public cultural material in Malta falls under the remit of
the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (MEDC) and of the various
entities it encompasses.1 The overall coordination within the Ministry is
carried out by the Culture and Audiovisuals Unit, which forms part of the
Office of the Permanent Secretary, while the key MEDC contributors to the
process of digitisation of cultural material are the following: National
Archives of Malta, Libraries Department, Superintendence of Cultural Heritage,
Heritage Malta, Malta Council for Culture and the Arts, University of Malta,
Public Broadcasting Services.
Furthermore, the Department of Information2 (Office of the Prime Minister) and
the Broadcasting Authority3, hold substantial material of cultural relevance,
some of which has already started to be digitalised. As the entity responsible
for the implementation of the Smart Island – The National ICT Strategy
2008-20104 and the Government of Malta’s entire ICT policy and planning
functions, the Malta Information Technology Agency5 will be a partner,
together
with the IT industry and content providers, such as those mentioned above, to
assist in developing a system that encourages the creation of digital content.

The Relevance of Maltese Partners for a CIP Digital Libraries Project
A few of the entities mentioned above are being highlighted below in terms of
the collections they own and/or manage, and with a view to contributing
content
for digitisation and online dissemination.
Superintendence of Cultural Heritage - The Cultural Heritage Act of 2002
identifies the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage as the statutory body
responsible for the development and management of a National Inventory of
Cultural Property in Malta. In 2007, the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage
launched the CHIMS (Cultural Heritage Inventory Management System)6 which aims
at creating a knowledge-based context for understanding, managing and
disseminating data concerning cultural heritage. CHIMS targets all aspects of
cultural life as highlighted in the Cultural Heritage Act, namely movable and
immovable
objects of artistic, architectural, historical, archaeological, ethnographic,
palaeontological and geological importance. Populating CHIMS is one of the the
Superintendence’s top priorities in terms of developing a web-based cultural
heritage management tool and its participation in this project shall be
focussed on this aspect.

Heritage Malta - 
Heritage Malta is the national operating agency for museums, conservation
practice and cultural heritage, created by the Cultural Heritage Act in 2002.
The agency is entrusted with the management of museums, sites and their
collections, while since 2005 it was also charged with the take over of the
former Malta Centre for Restoration to become the national agency responsible
for conservation. The collections managed by Heritage Malta (excluding the
sites themselves) consist of items of relevance to Natural History (around
10,000 items), Fine Arts (around 10,000 items), Ethnography (around 3,000
items), Maritime and Military History (around 7,000 items), and Archaeology
(over 100,000 items). Heritage Malta is currently working on the
development of
a digital collections management system which can both benefit from and
contribute to achieving the aims of this project.

Department of Libraries (National Library of Malta) - 
In its capacity as National Library, the mission of the Bibliotheca, as it is
more commonly known, is to acquire, catalogue and preserve manuscripts and all
printed books, as well as periodicals and journals issued in Malta. Among the
treasures held in the Bibliotecheca are the archives of the Order of St.
John of
Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, consisting of the documents produced and
received by the Chancery of the Order since its origins until the end of its
rule in Malta (1798) amounting to almost 7,000 volumes. The Library also holds
around sixty incunabula (books printed before 1500), 1600 volumes of Library
manuscripts (including fourteenth and fifteenth century codices), and a
collection of maps and plans ranging from the 16th to the 20th century,
amongst
others.

National Archives of Malta – 
The objectives and functions of the National Archives are defined in the
National Archives Act (no. IV of 1990) and are primarily focused on
collecting,
preserving and organising public records and making them available for study
and research purposes. The main repository of the National Archives comprise
the nucleus of the former Palace Archives, Valletta, augmented by records
brought over from various Government departments. These documents date back to
the early days of British rule (early 19th century).
The Archives also hold a collection of film and video documentaries related to
Malta's history.

Malta Council for Culture and the Arts (MCCA) – 
The MCCA holds a large repository of digital and non-digital photographic
material related to the events it has been organising since its establishment
in 2003. These relate mainly to the Malta Jazz Festivals, the Malta Summer
Arts
Festivals, the Malta Mediterranean Folksinging Festival, the Malta Carnival
and
the Notte Bianca events.

Challenges faced in the digitisation of cultural Material in Malta
The Ministry responsible for Culture in Malta has been coordinating the
efforts
by the various agencies concerned in order to identify the key challenges
faced
by the process of digitisation of cultural material, with a view to maximising
Malta’s presence online and its contribution to the Europeana initiative. To
this effect, preliminary assessments have been made to identify planned and
required investments in digitisation equipment, digital storage facilities,
human resources capacity building for cataloguing and digitisation, and the
appropriate financial resources required for this exercise.
One of the main challenges faced in this effort arises from the fact that
different entities have different procedures, capacities and facilities to put
digitised material online, depending on whether they are authorities,
autonomous entities or government departments. National coordination in this
matter ensures that there is an equitable distribution of facilities and
resources between the users, since these variables are in no way connected to
the amount and value of cultural material each contributor can put online.
Agencies and entities are well aware of the fact that the digitisation process
is a very laborious and time consuming exercise, requiring dedicated resources
and a clear identification of specific digitisation projects and their
concomitant demand on financial, human and technical resources. While there
remains scope to invest more in the continuous professional development of
catalogue and collections managers, conservation experts, librarians and
archivists, there is also ample scope for collaboration with a number of
academic and higher educational institutions that can provide support for such
digitisation
projects depending on the nature of the cultural material involved (film,
artefacts, documents, etc.). This can also be elaborated within the context of
international collaboration projects.
In terms of technical requirements, digital storage issues appear to be among
the most critical in the whole digitisation process for many entities, mainly
due to the high costs involved.
Coordination and exposure to international practices in the use of equipment
for digitisation and for digital storage will be of direct benefit to the
stakeholders, also in view of the fast rate of technological innovation in
this
sector. This is also linked to issues of long-term digital preservation of
cultural material.

Malta’s ICT Strategy and Digital Libraries
The Malta Information Technology Agency is the national entity responsible for
the implementation of Malta’s second ICT Strategy (Smart Island 2008-2010).
This strategy makes explicit reference to the development of IT in the
field of
cultural management. Stream four of the policy identifies three relevant
targets which match the overall objectives of the projects to be approved
under
the current ICT Digital Libraries call for submissions:

Objective 4.2 Promoting digital libraries. We will set in train a programme to
establish national, regional and local public libraries into digital nodes,
providing not only content but
also access to the full suite of digital services. 
Objective 4.3 Malta-relevant content programme. Together with publishers,
broadcasters, the ICT sector and content-providers, we will work to increase
the quantity and quality of Maltarelevant
content. We will also work with NGOs to help them set up an interactive
on-line
presence.
Objective 4.4 National digital archives project We will set up a digital
archives framework as a virtual platform for the storage, tagging,
presentation
and discussion of Malta’s archives,
including those of the National Library, the Department of Information and
Public Broadcasting Services Ltd. This will be extended to provide other
cultural and heritage
archival services. The Strategy also aims at increasing by 200% the
Malta-relevant content on the internet by 2010.

Aim of Expression of Interest
The current CIP Digital Libraries call is framed within the European drive to
make as much cultural material from as many sources as possible accessible
online through the
EUROPEANA portal. The specific objectives of the Pilot B 2.3 Digitising
Content
for EUROPEANA require that
- Material to be digitised must be held by cultural institutions from
different
European countries and be of interest to a broad public
- projects are selected through a thematic approach, demonstrating added value
of bringing the selected content from different countries together in
Europeana
- Digitised content should be made available to citizens through Europeana
immediately after digitisation
- Digitisation should result in a critical mass of complementary content or
add
further European value to already digitised collections
The participation of Maltese public entities responsible for the management of
public cultural material shall be guided by the following principles:
- cultural material shall be selected for digitisation on the basis of
strategic
digitisation priorities identified by the entities themselves, thus ensuring
that full complimentarity
between the national and the European relevance of the project;
- digitised content shall be made compatible with entities’ own online sites,
the national inventory system (CHIMS) and the Europeana parameters, thus
ensuring the
maximisation of resources and the avoidance of duplication;
- the material selected for digitisation shall be selected in line with the
following general categories which can serve as collaborative themes with the
project partners:
o Material representing contemporary arts and culture
o Historical and artistic material from the colonial period 18th and early
19th
century
o Material focussing on the 16th-18th century period broadly corresponding to 
the presence of the Knights of St. John in Malta
o Cultural heritage material from archaeological sites and museums.

For more information please contact:

Caldon Mercieca
Culture and Audiovisuals Unit
Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport
Auberge d'Italie, Merchants Street

Valletta VLT 1170 - Malta

Email: caldon.mercieca@gov.mt

Tel: 356 22915057

Fax: 356 22915068

3) Une grand bibliothèque portugaise

I have a Portuguese association (http://www.aip.pt/) that has a huge library
collecting volumes (books, audiovisual, sound, archival records, newspapers,
photos, etc.), since 1837 (about 5 000 documents).The AIP would like to
digitalise and preserve their precious collection applying with an
international consortium for the PSP ICT 2009 call for proposal: “Objective
2.3: European Digital Library – Digitising content for Europeana”.

Merci de contacter

Elisabete Pires
CIP - IST PSP National Contact Point
............................................................................
.......
Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) - http://www.umic.pt
Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education 
Ed. Inovação 1 - 2º - Sala 124
2740 - 122 Porto Salvo
PORTUGAL
Tel. +351 211.119.600 - Fax. +351 211.119.648








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Patrick SCHOULLER
Ministère de l'Economie de l'Industrie et de l'Emploi
DGCIS - STIC
Représentant national "Programmes européens dédiés à la société de
l'information"
www.telecom.gouv.fr

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