Virtual Igartubeiti - New Technologies for the Dissemination of a Basque Cultural Heritage Asset

摘要

For European cultural institutions, being digital is not an option anymore, but a need and increasingly reality. Today, cultural institutions are confronted with a virtually endless amount of digital cultural information of all types and formats, including digital images, audio and video recording, electronic text, interactive and multimedia applications, as well as geographic information, which complement more traditional cultural information. Simply providing information on where to find cultural heritage objects or giving access to digitized objects themselves may be of interest to academic users or highly specialized communities, but it may not be sufficient to also attract new user groups and broader audiences. This is what can currently be observed, with services, which are particularly targeted at certain communities and not necessarily meaningful to other audiences. In order to reach broader audiences, cultural institutions need to build knowledge-rich multimedia information resources which provide explanation and guidance as well as additional context. New tools and systems are therefore required to support this effort to truly disseminate the value of the cultural heritage resources they are taking care of.