SOS: seven digital topics in a couple of minutes
15 Dec 2022Knowledge-sharing is one of our core tasks, and we don’t just do this through training or on our platforms; we also regularly feature on a wide range of digital heritage topics in specialist journals. In case you’ve missed anything, you can now read all our articles from the past year on our CEST knowledge platform.
Every two months, we have the opportunity to share quick and useful tips in the Uitgepakt (‘Unpacked’) section in META – the publication from the Flemish Association for Library, Archive & Documentation (VVBAD) – and sometimes we also delve a little deeper. Read more below...
Heritage and facial recognition
Facial recognition is a hot topic. Find out why in this META article (link in Dutch): what is it, exactly, and what are the benefits and challenges?
From an ethical standpoint
Is it ethical to apply facial recognition to create and add metadata to cultural heritage? Bart Magnus discusses the issue in brief here, and goes into more detail in this FARO (Flemish Institution for Cultural Heritage) article (link in Dutch).
The legal aspect
In additional to ethical issues, the legal aspect also plays a major role in facial recognition. Ellen Van Keer shares which legal frameworks (link in Dutch) you need to take into account if you want to use facial recognition to create and add metadata for cultural heritage purposes.
File formats for digitisation
If you’re digitising your collections, you know that your choice of file format is crucial for ensuring quality and sustainability. The TIFF format is often recommended for digitising photographic collections, for example, but RAW and DNG files have also been in use over recent years. Rony Vissers explains what they can do and whether you should consider them.
Tip! Could they be better? Nastasia Vanderperren and Rony Vissers wrote a piece on file formats for POLITEIA’s Archive and Information Management Handbook. Read it now on CEST.
Making historical locations findable on a map with Linked Places Format
Collection data is increasingly being enriched with information about places, so the collections can be found on maps. Bert Lemmens explains how this can also be done for historic locations using the new metadata standard, Linked Places Format.
Making collections accessible online with Archival Resource Key (ARK)
For more information about how to make your collections accessible online in the long term, it’s best to use persistent identifiers (PIDs) or URIs to link them to a static web address (URL). Alina Saenko explains how the Archival Resource Key (ARK) can provide a solution.
Pictured: Rooftops, trees and a woman, Rik Wouters, KMSKA (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) collection, photo by Hugo Maertens, via www.artinflanders.be, licence: public domain
Project management and the Scrum method
All sorts of different tools and methods are available to help ensure your project is a success. To find out how the Scrum method can help, and what commonly used terms such as Agile, iterative and incremental mean, read Lise Ruts’ article.
About WARC: the standard web archive format
The popularity of websites and social media has led to new archival challenges, because how do you keep a record of this fleeting content? WARC is the standard web archive format, and Nastasia Vanderperren summarises exactly what it is, how it’s structured, and why you should use it.
Tip: want to find out more? We’re researching best practices for archiving social media in Flanders and Brussels, together with KADOC (Documentation and Research Centre on Religion, Culture and Society at KU Leuven) and numerous other partners, in this project.
Internet Archive, an impressive digital library
Loaning books digitally, accessing archived web pages and even archiving websites are just some of the things you can do with Internet Archive – a digital library that aims to provide universal access to all human knowledge, as Lode Scheers explains.