ENUMERATE is a EU-funded project, led by UK-based Collections Trust. The primary objective of ENUMERATE is to create a reliable baseline of statistical data about digitization, digital preservation and online access to cultural heritage in Europe. Currently, statistical data on Europe’s digital heritage is tentative and scattered at best. For the European Commission and many of the agencies and actors in the field of culture there is no consistent evidence base for making strategic decisions on investments in digitisation. ENUMERATE will bring about major improvements in the quality and availability of intelligence about digital heritage.
A consortium of ten partners will be at the core of ENUMERATE, a so called Thematic Network. Together they will initiate a Europe-wide community of practice to share statistical data and knowledge on the progress of digitisation. They will do so through a multi-annual programme of coordinated surveys, including wide-scale harmonized statistical data-gathering and more in-depth surveying of digitization activities by European cultural heritage institutions. All activities of the ENUMERATE consortium start from the principle that heritage institutions will get useful information in return for sharing their data. Results will be published on an open data platform, where raw and summary data can be viewed and collated by interested parties.
ENUMERATE builds on the results of the NUMERIC project (2007-2009; www.numeric.ws). This was a ground breaking initiative to create a framework for the gathering of statistical data on digital cultural heritage. ENUMERATE will improve and refine the methodology from this previous project and will bring the data online for re-use. ENUMERATE also takes on board the results of a recent study of Collections Trust into the costs of digitising Europe’se cultural heritage. These results were published as an annex to the ‘New Renaissance’ report of the EU Reflection Group on bringing Europe’s Cultural Heritage online.
The organisations that are a member of the ENUMERATE Consortium are:
- Collections Trust, UK (project coordinator)
- The DEN foundation, Netherlands
- Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Germany
- Digibis, Spain
- FARO, Belgium
- Ministry of Culture & Communication, France
- Austrian National Library, Austria
- National and University Library of Slovenia, Slovenia
- National Széchényi Library, Hungary
- The European Library (hosted by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Netherlands)
The project ENUMERATE is funded by the ICT Policy Support Programme of the European Commission and runs for three years, starting February 2011.
More information on ICT-PSP can be found at
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries
Contact details:
Gordon McKenna
International Development Manager
Collections Trust
