KK-03-03-001-EN-C New Technologies for the Cultural and Scientific Heritage Sector DigiCULT Consortium www.digicult.info Technology Watch Report 1 Legal Notice Copyright The copyright for this document is the property of the European Commission.This document is supplied on the expressed condition that the contents must not be used for purposes other than that for which it has been supplied, or reproduced, wholly or in part without the prior written permission of the European Commission. Disclaimer The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int). Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication. ISBN 92-894-5275-7 © European Commission, 2003 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged Printed in Austria NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE SECTOR DigiCULT Technology Watch Report 1 February 2003 Seamus Ross Director, HATII, University of Glasgow Martin Donnelly DigiCULT Forum Technology Assessor, HATII, University of Glasgow Milena Dobreva Associate Professor, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Table of Contents Acknowledgements, Introduction 5 Customer Relationship Management 21 Digital Asset Management Systems 41 Smart Labels and Smart Tags 63 Virtual Reality and Display Technologies 95 Human Interfaces 117 Games Technologies 149 Annexes: Selected Glossary, Abbreviations and References 171 5 6 Acknowlegements ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As readers can imagine, producing a document like this requires the support, guidance, and advice of many colleagues.The authors would like to thank: John Pereira, DigiCULT Co-ordinator, Salzburg Research;Andrea Mulrenin and Guntram Geser, Information Society Research, Salzburg Research; Friso Visser, formerly of IBM and now of Bibliotek Netherlands; Brian Aitken, Rebecca Sharp, Monica Greenan and Andrew McHugh, HATII, University of Glasgow; Catherine Owen, Performing Arts Data Service, UK; Dr Jeremy Huggett, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow.We extend our thanks to Andrew Cameron of Maplehurst Consultants and Michael Steemson of the Caldeson Consultancy both of whom provided valuable advice and guidance.The specialised assistance of Dr Nikola Ikonomov (Associate Professor, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) made the preparation of the section on the games possi- ble.The support of the European Commission through our Project Officer,Axel Szauer of the Directorate-General Information Society, has been immensely valuable to us in bringing this work to completion. The case studies are central to the concept that underlies the DigiCULT Technology Watch Report, and we would like to thank those who participated in interviews and questionnaires: Matt Adams, Blast Theory, London; Dr Barry Aprison, Director of Science and Technology, Chicago Museum of Science and Industry; Professor Richard Beacham, School of Theatre Studies, University of Warwick; Professor Steve Benford, Communications Research Group, University of Nottingham; Chris Copp, Museums Officer, Staffordshire Arts & Museum Service, England; Dr Maurizio Forte, Senior Scientist, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy; Riikka Haapalainen, Researcher, Finnish National Gallery; Graham Higley, Head of Information and Library Systems,The Natural History Museum, London; Lesley Keen, Mixipix, Scotland;Anneli Kuukka, BBC Scotland Interactive;Andreas Lange, CEO,The Digital Game Archive; Dr Rose Lockwood, Director of Research, Berlitz GlobalNET; Richard Masters,Technical Architect,The British Library; John Payne, Digital Design Studio, Glasgow School of Art; John Perkins, Executive Director, CIMI; Fiona Richardson, Information Services Manager, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; Karen L Saunders,Assistant City Librarian, Santa Clara City Library; James Stevenson, Photographic Manager,Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Dr Didier Stricker, Fraunhofer IGD, Darmstadt, Germany; Graham Turnbull, Publishing Manager, SCRAN; Dr Vassilios Vlahakis, Intracom SA, Greece; Richard Williams, Glasgow Museums. Thanks to the following for help with images for the Report: Kelly Allison, Business Development Manager, Documentum; Dr Maurizio Forte, Senior Scientist, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy; Riikka Haapalainen, Researcher, Finnish National Gallery;Andreas Lange, CEO,The Digital Game Archive; Richard Masters,Technical Architect,The British Library; Marcel Nauer, Chairman, Bibliotheca RFID Library Systems AG; Fiona Richardson, Information Services Manager, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; Dr Stephan Schneider, Project Manager,Tecmath AG; MacKenzie Smith,Associate Director for Technology, MIT Libraries; James Stevenson, Photographic Manager,Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Dr Melissa Terras,Assistant Manager in 7 Acknowledgements Engineering Policy,The Royal Academy of Engineering, London;Trifon Trifonov, Author,The Boyana Church Project; Dr Vassilios Vlahakis,Intracom SA, Greece; Ingrid Weydemann, Museum der Fronfeste,Abt. Geberei u. Säcklerei, Leihgabe Brunnbauer, Neumarkt am Wallersee,Austria; Johann Peer in order of telesis development manage- ment GmbH,Austria; Johann Mannerheim,The Royal Library, National Library of Sweden;Allette Ahsmann, Netherlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid. The production team at Salzburg Research is: Peter Baldinger (Design Concept), Andreas Gruber (Layout), and Werner Moser (Graphics). Finally, we wish to extend our thanks to the DigiCULT Steering Committee for helping shape the direction of this report, and for contributing to ensuring its quality: - Philippe Avenier, Ministère de la culture et de la communication, France -Paolo Buonora,Archivio di Stato di Roma, Italy - Costis Dallas, Critical Publics SA, Greece - Bert Degenhart-Drenth,ADLIB Information Systems BV,Netherlands -Paul Fiander, BBC Information & Archives, United Kingdom -Peter Holm Lindgaard,TV 2, Denmark -Erich J Neuhold, Fraunhofer IPSI, Germany -Bruce Royan, Concurrent Computing Ltd, United Kingdom 8 Introduction INTRODUCTION The Digital Culture Forum (DigiCULT Forum, IST-2001-34898) monitors and assesses research and technological developments in and for the cultural heritage sector in Europe. DigiCULT received support from the European Commission’s Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme under the 5th Framework Programme. It is not a new initiative. It is the successor to a strategic study commissioned by the Cultural Heritage Applications Unit of the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Information Society. DigiCULT’s 2002 report, Te c hnological Landscape for Tomorrow’s Cultural Economy investi- gated the technological issues that cultural heritage institutions needed to address over the following five years.Acknowledged experts joined discussions to identify the most pressing technological problems memory institutions were likely to face during this period.They recommended political and institutional action required if cultural heritage organisations were to obtain the maximum benefit from the opportunities technology was opening.While it is hoped that readers will have the opportunity to study that report itself, this paper draws attention to several challenges the study showed were facing Europe’s institutions.These included the need: - to provide access to the riches of European cultural heritage by enabling interoper- ability between its various sectors.This can only be achieved if issues associated with variation in standards and interoperability across these sectors can be addressed; -to build tools and systems to tackle the increasing volume of material needing to be digitised and maintained in accessible forms; -to address the technological, intellectual, legal and economic problems related to archiving and long-term preservation of cultural heritage content; - to unlock cultural heritage resources by offering personalised, highly interactive, stimulating, hybrid environments and shared spaces to foster the construction of cultural heritage content; and, - to enable players from different sectors and users to participate actively in creating enriched environments for cultural heritage services by building easy-to-use, intelli- gent, collaborative and highly interactive tools and systems for non-technical users. Meeting these challenges depends not only on con- tent creation, but also on access to information about technological developments and opportunities. The cultural heritage sector suffers from a lack of access to accurate, accessible information about current, near- and longer-term technological developments. Furthermore, the sector has no reputable source which reviews the experiences of its institutions as each attempts to take advantage of newer technologies, © Museum der Fronfeste, Neumarkt am Wallersee, Austria Neumarkt am Wallersee, © Museum der Fronfeste, whether they be methodological, technical, or exploitative. 9 Introduction DigiCULT aims to bridge this gap. It examines the changing face of technology to identify developments that could be deployed without further work, those that would require further development or repurposing and those that are still in promising, early stages of gestation DigiCULT’s project team recognises the risks of adopting a technol- ogy driven approach. It endeavours to balance its over-view of the technologies with the opportunity for