For the next three years, the National Library of Latvia will be implementing a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and nationally co-funded project in the field of Latvia’s digital cultural heritage, together with project partners – the National Archives of Latvia, the State Inspection for Heritage Protection of Latvia, and the Cultural Information System Centre.
The project continues the project " Digitization of the Cultural Heritage Content (1st Stage)" ongoing activities and main objective of the project is to ensure the wide availability of Latvian cultural heritage to society in the digital environment, which serves as a basis for strengthening national identity, developing the cultural, scientific, knowledge society and creative industries, and ensuring the long-term preservation of national cultural heritage in digital form, creating opportunities for its repeated use in new products and services, as well as its integration into a unified European and global cultural digital space.
By the end of 2022 the project will digitize 976 000 pages of text, 150 000 images and descriptions of various and valuable cultural artefacts, including maps, photographs, surveys of cultural monuments and descriptions of objects, 350 000 minutes of audio, and video footage, 660 minutes of cinema footage, 50 000 museum objects, as well as 30 objects of 3D digitalization of cultural monuments, records of 50 cultural events and 15 units of intangible cultural heritage.
Simultaneously with the digitization process, the project will further develop the Unite Digital Object Management and Conservation System, develop Unite Content Distribution System, develop the 2nd Stage of the Copyright Management and Content Licensing System, develop the 2nd Stage of the Cultural Monuments Information Management System “Heritage”, publish several Open Datasets, including Related Open Datasets, and develop the 1st Stage of an Integrated Centralized Open System Information Platform.
The project implementation costs are EUR 3 900 000, of which EUR 3 315 000 (85%) is ERDF funding and EUR 585 000 (15%) is national co-funding. At least 50% of the project’s eligible costs are for the digitization of cultural-heritage content.
Duration of the project – 36 months (16.09.2019 - 15.09.2022)..jpg)