Rossella Caffo

Before she took on this role, Rossella Caffo  was the director of the University Library in Cagliari (2000 – 2001), director of the Information and Statistical Service of the General Secretary of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and activities  (2001 – 2004), and of the Library of Modern and Contemporary History in Rome (2005 – 2008)

She was appointed by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities as the Italian representative in the European National Representatives Group for digitisation of cultural heritage and subsequently in the Member States’ Expert Group on Digitisation and Digital preservation.

She was President of Italian Library Association (AIB) (1994 – 1997) and a member of the EBLIDA Executive Committee as the representative of Italian Library Association 1997 – 2001).

On behalf of the Ministry  for  Cultural Heritage and Activities,  she  coordinates major digital cultural heritage projects on the national level, such as Internet Culturale[1] (launched in 2001), which developed an integrated access portal to the digital resources of Italian libraries, archives and other cultural institutes, and CulturaItalia[2], the portal of the Italian culture, launched on April 2008.

She was coordinator of the European projects MINERVA[3] , MICHAEL[4] and MICHAELplus, and is coordinator of the ongoing European projects Digital Cultural Heritage Network (DC-NET[5]), ATHENA[6], INDICATE, and Linked Heritage (under negotiation).

On behalf of the Ministry for cultural heritage, she is responsible for coordinating the Italian  contribution  for  the World Digital Library project (WDL), developed by the Library of Congress of Washington and in cooperation with UNESCO and other institutions from around the world. Via ICCU, Rossella Caffo is also involved in the JUDAICA EUROPEANA[7] and STACHEM[8] projects.

[1] http://www.internetculturale.it/

[2] http://www.culturaitalia.it/pico/

[3] http://www.minervaeurope.org/

[4] http://www.michael-culture.eu/

[5] http://www.dc-net.org/

[6] http://www.athenaeurope.org/

[7] http://www.judaica-europeana.eu/

[8] http://starc.cyi.ac.cy/stachem/stachem

The ERANET DC-NET project (Digital Cultural Heritage-Network): Objectives and first initiatives: abstract

At European level, a  Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on cultural heritage was launched recently,  coordinated by Italy, in particular by the Ministry for cultural heritage and activities and the Ministry for education, university and research.

The JPI is supported by  the Commission Recommendation on the research joint programming initiative "Cultural Heritage and Global Change: a new challenge for Europe" enacted on 26 April 2010. It  encourages Member States and associated countries to "develop a common vision on how cooperation and coordination in the field of research at Union level can help to preserve cultural heritage in all its forms, ensuring its security and sustainable exploitation", "to develop a common strategic research agenda".

The implementation of the new project DC-NET research infrastructure  relies on the  political endorsement through the JPI.

The project DC-NET is an ERA-NET project, financed by the European Commission under the e-Infrastructure - Capacities Programme of the FP7 and coordinated by MiBAC-ICCU. It  started on 1^st December 2009 and  involves ministries and national institutes from Italy, Belgium, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia and Sweden in the coordination of digital Cultural heritage  research programmes.

The core activities of the DC-NET ERA-NET project focus on the coordination of digital cultural heritage research programmes which are owned and managed by Ministries of Culture, Ministries of Research and their agencies, in close cooperation with the EC and the e-Infrastructures community across Europe.

The main final scope of the DC-NET project is to generate a powerful and comprehensive plan of joint activities for the implementation of a new data and service e-Infrastructure for a virtual research community in the Digital Cultural Heritage.The new e-Infrastructure will be targeted towards a multidisciplinary virtual research community on digital cultural heritage that is demanding increasingly empowered functions (access, searchability, storage, usability, etc.) to improve their scientific collaboration and innovation.

DC-NET aims  :

• To foster cooperation between the cultural sector, research bodies and technology and infrastructure providers
• To harmonise initiatives of the EU Ministries of Culture into a common strategy for the digital cultural heritage
• To translate the strategic road map into coordinated programmes and action plans
• To plan the construction of the DC-NET data and services infrastructure
• To gather stakeholders’s commitment
• To develop and to endorse a research agenda for a European e-Infrastructure for the digital cultural heritage, shared among the Member States and the European Commission

On 1st September 2010  started a new project,  INDICATE which focuses on the coordination of policies and best practices regarding the use of e-Infrastructures for digital cultural heritage in countries of the Mediterranean region.

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