CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC HERITAGE INVENTORY AND DIGITISATION IN ROMANIA

Anca Rapeanu; Corina Dovinca

“Carol I” Central University Library Bucharest

• General context – Global Information Society

• European context – Cooperation between EU-member

countries– Cooperation between EU-member and

non-member countries MINERVA Plus– South-Eastern Europe countries

Cultural Heritage and Digitisation Romania

General presentation

Objectives:

In order to preserve and disseminate its national values, Romania’s objectives are:

• restoring the heritage, as far as the financial situation permits it;

• a strong co-operation between the central and local authorities, between the public and private sectors, between specialists and citizens;

• the initiatives of economic development of the country should include in its policies the protection and development of the cultural heritage as an active part of the country’s development.

Romanian context

• Ex-communist country

• EU integration process

• Rich cultural heritage

• International cooperation

Legislative framework (1)

Conventions proposed by the Council of Europe and ratified by the Romanian Parliament:

• The Convention on the Protection of the Architectural Heritage – the Convention of Granada from 1985 was ratified in 1997 (the Law on the ratification of the Convention on the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe no. 157/1997).

• The Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage - revised – the Convention of La Valetta from 1992 was ratified in 1997 (Law on the ratification of the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage no. 150/1997).

• The European Landscape Convention was ratified in july 2002. (Law on the ratification of the European Convention of Landscape no. 451/2002)

Legislative framework (2)• The Law on the approval of the Plan for the country planning –

protected zones (Law 5/2000); • The Government Ordinance on the protection of the historic

monuments on the World Heritage List (GO 47/2000), approved with changes by Law 564/2001;

• The Government Ordinance on the protection of the archaeological heritage (Law 378/2001for the approval of the Government Ordinance no. 43/2000 on the protection of the archaeological heritage and declaration of some archaeological sites archaeological areas);

• The Law on protection of national mobile cultural heritage (Low 182/25th of October 2000) and Government Ordinance for modification of Law no. 182/25th of October 2000 concerning protection of national mobile cultural heritage;

• The Law on the protection of the historic monuments (Law 422/2001)

• The Order of the Minister of Culture No. 2044/09.05.2001 regulates the Register for destructed, stolen, missing or illegal exported cultural assets, which are under the property or administration of legal entities.

Inventories:Administrated Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs: • Unesco World Heritage List from Romania;• Registry of Scheduled Monuments.

Administrated by The Institute for Cultural Memory:• Registry of Scheduled Monuments, The National Archaeological

Inventory (RAN). The RAN Database has over 6,200 records and is growing fast;

• National Computer Record of the Mobile Cultural Property Classified in the National Cultural Heritage;

• National Collective Directory of the Romanian Rare Books;• Integrated computer record of the mobile cultural heritage of the

places of worship in Romania; • Computer Record of the Places of Worship in Romania.

Actors

• Governmental bodies

• Research organisations

• MLA’s

Governmental bodies• Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs - is a specialized body of the

central public administration. According to the Government Resolution no. 28/January 2001 on the organization and functioning of the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs, it is responsible for developing specific strategies and policies to support culture.

• 42 Directorates for Culture, Religious Affairs and National Cultural Heritage

• The National Institute for Historic Monuments - public institution directly subordinated to the Ministry for Culture and Religious AffairsTasks: – elaborates standards and methodologies for historic monuments,– provides scientific foundation for decisions of the National Comittee for

Historic Monuments regarding classification and administration of historic monuments

• The National Office for Historic Monuments - is a public institution directly subordinated to the Ministry for Culture and Religious Affairs Tasks: – management of funds for research– projecting and execution of protecting work for historic monuments– elaborates the national restoration program – ascribes projecting and execution contracts trough public auctions.

Research organisations (1)• Institute for Cultural Memory CIMEC - organization directly

subordinated to The Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs, founded in 1978 in order to keep computerized evidence of the cultural patrimony.– Tasks: collecting, processing, preserving and dissemination of

information related to mobile and immobile cultural heritage; administration of national data basis and other computerized cultural information sources; development of instruments for the collections documentation (artefacts description rules, data standards, terminological thesauri, authority files, software etc.); editorial activities related to the field of cultural heritage; technical assistance and consultancy for museums, libraries and other cultural institutions;

– active participation in European projects and international partnership in order to contribute to integration of Romania in European structures, dissemination of Romanian cultural heritage and alignment to the newest technologies, methods, practices and standards in this field.

Research organisations (2)

• National Research Laboratory for Research in Conservation and Restauration of Mobile Cultural Heritageis - public institution directly subordinated to the Ministry for Culture and Religious Affairs

Tasks – expertising in the field of conservation and restoration of cultural

goods– training in the field of conservation and restoration of cultural

goods• Romanian Academy- Romanian highest cultural forum.

– Objectives: cultivation of the national language and literature, study of the national history, research into major scientific domains, and promotion of democratic and ethical principles of free communication of ideas in Romanian sciences, arts and letters

Repositories (MLA) (1) • The Romanian National Library administrates an important part of

national cultural heritage – books, periodical publications, manuscripts, rare books, incurables, cartographic materials, photographs, audio-visual materials and electronic documents

• The Romanian Academy Library Its main goal was preservation of the national fund of manuscripts and printed materials, old and current, illustrating mainly the history and culture of the Romanian people. Since 1885, the Romanian Academy Library is a repository library. The library holdings number is almost 10 million copies, out of which 3.6 million are monographs and 5.3 million are bounded serials. The collection of manuscripts is considered to be the richest of its kind in the country, while the collections of prints and drawings, maps, numismatics, recorded music and scores are all real points of reference in their fields

Repositories (MLA) (2)

University libraries “Carol I” Central University Library of Bucharest Central University Library “Lucian Blaga” Cluj –Napoca Metropolitan Library of Bucharest is a cultural institution

subordinated to the Bucharest City Hall. Is is a public encyclopaedic library, responsible for Bucharest legal deposit. County libraries

County Libraries• “Gh. Asachi” Iasi County Library • "Ioan N. Roman" Constanta County Library • “Panait Istrati“ Braila County Library • "V.A. Urechia" County Library Galati • Brasov County Library

Projects - CIMEC:• National Projects:• RAN - Developing the National Archaeological Record• National Computer Record of the Mobile Cultural Property Classified in the National Cultural

Heritage• National Computer Record of the Rare Books Heritage• Integrated computer record of the mobile cultural heritage of the places of worship in Romania• Computer Record of the Places of Worship in Romania• National Computer Record of the Performing Arts Heritage• International projects:• ARENA project (Archaeological Records of Europe - Network Access). Extending Online Access

and Digital Preservation of European Archaeological Archives), 2001 - 2004.• The EPOCH Network of Excellence in the field of new technologies applications for cultural

heritage• organizing international courses; participating in the AMA project - Mapping Tool for Conceptual

Reference Model (2005 - 2006); participating in the network management (Irina Oberländer-Tarnoveanu as member of the Board of Directors)

• HEREIN - European heritage Network - continuation on a voluntary base of the collaboration with the European Heritage Network:

• updating the Romanian report on the cultural policies in the field of cultural heritage; joining the annual meeting of the national correspondents; participating in the development of the multilingual thesauri.

Projects – The Romanian Academy

• started to digitise its collections in 1999, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs and CIMEC (they provided the technical instruments).

• 36.000 digital facsimiles of Eminescu’s Manuscripts processed.

• http://www.bar.acad.ro/EminescuEng2.html • Traian Vuia – Archives: it includes digital

facsimiles of manuscripts and plans of flying machines invented by Traian Vuia http://www.bar.acad.ro/Vuiaeng.htmrojectul

Projects – The National LibraryNational Digital Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts -

APOGRAF Project• Batthyaneum Library in Alba Iulia, branch of the National Library,

together with The Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs and CIMEC

• started in October 2003 with the digitization of the most important manuscripts in the Batthyaneum Collection in Alba Iulia.

• The scanning is performed using the state-of-the-art scanning technology and following the highest preservation standards. The digital material produced includes archival-type, high-resolution tiff images, and medium-size jpg images for web publication.

• At 15th of February 2005, 194 volumes (over 50.000 pages) from Batthyaneum Library, Alba Iulia were already existed in digital facsimile format. At present, there are over 180.000 recordings in the database, available at http://www.apograf.cimec.ro.

Projects – University Libraries“Carol I” Central University Library of Bucharest • digitising of valuable documents from its collections, or materials that are often

circulating and are no longer under copyright law protection (the first Titu Maiorescu edition of Mihai Eminescu’s poetry is available now online : Mihail Eminescu. Poesii. Bucuresti: Editura Librariei Socecu & Comp., 1884. (http://www.bcub.ro/continut/valoribiblio/eminescu_1_100.pdf; http://www.bcub.ro/continut/ valoribiblio/eminescu_101_216.pdf; http://www.bcub.ro/continut/valoribiblio/eminescu_217_306.pdf).

• At present time 10.000 pages from its special collections items exist in digitised form, and are to be made public.

• Intends to create a digital library, consisting of articles from periodical publications in the field of librarianship and information science (articles written by employees of the library that would give their agreement for electronic publishing).

Central University Library “Lucian Blaga” Cluj –Napoca - DigiT. • digitisation of the library's valuable collections (patrimonial documents, iconographic

material, rare periodicals etc.). Chronologically, the project aims at the publications of the historical period from the Middle Age to the Modern Age

Projects - The Metropolitan Library of Bucharest

Virtual Library

• a broader and faster access to the information;• diversifying the possibilities of accessing the

library collections; • developing new and modern library services for

the users • at present time: 11 titles, 5500 pages, available

at http://www.bmb-on-line.ro/scripts/master.htm

Projects – County Libraries“Gh. Asachi” Iasi County Library - “A New Library. Interhuman Network”

– pilot project, started in 2003– selection of the documents which are included in this digitisation project was made in order

to create a thematically unity– five collections of reference documents were selected, containing 2.549 pages and 913

images."Ioan N. Roman" Constanta County Library

– started in 2003 - the collection of old periodical documents from Dobrogea. – available at « Online Publication » Section, on the website of Constanta County Library. The

digitization process is not finished yet. “Panait Istrati“ Braila County Library • The School Digital Library

– 30.000 pages of Romanian literature, in accordance to school curricula.• The Local Press digitization project

– started in 2004, will provide access to the complete collection of “Mercur” - the first commercial newspaper, from 1950 to 2006, in microfilms form

– project is due to end in 2010– present time 4.000 images are converted.

"V.A. Urechia" County Library Galati - a small project on digitisations which are including the correspondence, stamps and old postcards.

Brasov County Library together with “Casa Mureşenilor” Foundation digitising the newspaper “Gazeta de Transilvania”.

Good news

• Rich cultural heritage• National computerized inventories,

accessible trough the Internet • Legal environment harmonized with

European context• Importance of sharing resources is widely

acknowledged and mentioned in national strategies

• Local initiatives in libraries

Bad news

• lack of standardisation and coordination on a national level

• lack of efficient cooperation and communication between organisations - institutions still work on small-scale isolated projects, and sometimes do the same work twice

• existing project are insufficiently disseminated to public

Conclusions

• There is a strong need of expertise in management of digitisation projects – sometimes initiators are not so good in finding the appropriate management solutions for financing digitisation projects on a medium and long term.

• Standardisation and coordination on both national and regional level is necessary, together with a more active participation in international initiatives.

• In order to integrate its culture into the circuit of European values, Romania has to develop a coherent strategy for protecting and disseminating cultural heritage, not only on a national level, but also international one.

Thank you for your attention!

Anca Rapeanurapeanuanca@gmail.comCorina Dovincacorinadovanca@yahoo.com“Carol I” Central University Library Bucharest