Case study: How digitization can help to preserve the cultural heritage

Digitized cultural content is an important resource for European culture and the creative industry. According to the European Competitiveness Report for 2010, the creative industry accounts for 3.3% of GDP and 3% of workers places in the European Union. Digitization and online accessibility of the cultural heritage of the European Union Member States, including the national and international context, contributes to the economic growth and new job creation as well as to creation of a single digital market by increasing the supply of the new and innovative online products and services. The Digital Agenda is one of the seven key initiatives of the Europe 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It aims to help European citizens and enterprises to take full advantage of the digital technologies.

The Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia is a central state administration body which, among other things, is responsible for affairs in the field of culture related to the development and promotion of culture, cultural and artistic creation, cultural life and cultural activities. Furthermore, the Ministry promotes cultural ties with other countries and international institutions and encourages the development of cultural and creative industries. In addition, the Ministry of Culture and Media provides conditions for the improvement and development of culture, cultural creativity and cultural activities and has the capacity to encourage the development of a legal basis for the digitization of cultural heritage. The Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, with its program of the cultural heritage digitization, contributes to the development of a strong and effective economic governance system defined by the Europe 2020 Strategy. In addition, the Ministry has a special role in promoting and encouraging the cultural institutions to create digital content and services through which Croatian cultural heritage circulates freely within the European digital market.

With the aim of creating the conditions for sustainable management of the cultural heritage digitization process, the Ministry of Culture and Media envisaged the implementation of the project ‘’eCulture - cultural heritage digitization’’ (hereinafter: Project) at the national level. In order to prepare project documentation, the Ministry needed professional assistance to ensure the highest quality of the prepared project document as well as its sustainability. The Project needed to be prepared in a short time in order to take the opportunity for grant application. By procuring our professional assistance, the Ministry compensated insufficient human capacity for Project preparation thus laying the foundations for quality implementation and achievement of main objective.

The main objective of the Project is to ensure the safe storage of the cultural content through the establishment of an ICT system for creating the digital content and the availability of the cultural heritage content to all interested parties. The Project will, as mentioned above, involve the establishment of a national ICT system that will enable integrated search and access to the digital cultural heritage, metadata aggregation and interoperability of systems used in certain industries as well as the long-term preservation and long-term availability of the created digital content. The ICT system will be based on the international norms and guidelines of good practices in the field of organization, management, permanent storage and use of digital content. 

Our work was divided into two phases. In the first phase, EY did the current state analysis (AS IS) of the cultural heritage digitization process in the museums, libraries, archives and other creators of audio-visual cultural content, tools those institutions are using to digitize the content, quantity and quality of already digitized cultural content. In the context of the aforementioned, EY conducted the analysis of the existing legislative framework, costs and revenues of the cultural heritage digitization process and sustainability of the digitized content to understand the current state in the sector. In addition, EY did the analysis of the human resources involved in the digitalization to understand the institutions’ capacity for evolving the digitization to the next level. The analysis showed that the institutions (archives, museums and libraries) do not implement systematic digitization and that cultural heritage is at risk of deterioration and loss.

Next, EY made a proposal for the future (TO BE) state of the ICT system for digitization of the cultural heritage which included the ICT system architecture, conditions for ensuring the interoperability (interfaces) between the existing and future systems and interoperability with European and other cultural portals, defining the list of the key functional and non-functional requirements and required equipment for cultural content digitization. Also, in the context of the future (TO BE) state, EY defined standards for digitization which included the standards for establishing the unique and permanent identifiers, criteria for the selection of the content for digitization, proposal for defining the norms and rules for digitization including the file formats, recording parameters and image quality, metadata requirements, quality control and documentation digitization process, description of the workflow in accordance with the defined norms and rules.

Based on the AS IS and TO BE state, EY prepared the documentation for the application of the Project for co-financing from the European Union funds.

Based on our analysis, the Ministry of Culture and Media applied for the co-financing and was awarded with the grant in November 2019. Our support enabled the co-financing and sound basis for the Project implementation which will contribute to the long-term cultural heritage preservation.

EY provided the Ministry with the support in the current state analysis of the cultural heritage digitization process in the museums, libraries, archives and other creators of audio-visual cultural content. The current state analysis was followed by defining the future state requirements of the ICT system for creating and preserving digital content, as well as by the preparation of the overall Project application for EU grants award. Project was awarded by EU grants for which the Ministry of Culture and Media signed the grant agreement in November 2019. The total value of the Project is approximately EUR 5.599.263 of which 85% is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and 15% out of State's own resources.

The implementation of the Project is on-going. It is expected that until the end of its implementation, the Project will contribute to the increased use of the ICT in the communication between citizens and public administration by establishing the described ICT system. In the framework of the ICT system, three e-services will be developed which will increase the level of use of e-government services by citizens. The e-services are as follows:

• Service of access and review of digitized cultural content intended for citizens, scientists, students, enterprises and museums, libraries, archives community
• Service of permanent storage of digital and digitized cultural content in the central repository intended for the museums, libraries, archives community,
• Application and contracting service for allocation funds from the Ministry of Culture and Media.

Moreover, the Project will accelerate the process of the cultural heritage digitization, including the digital preservation, facilitating access to the content and online availability of the services related to digital cultural heritage, in line with the EU strategic framework.