The atgof website

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Friday, July 10, 2009

An acoustic chronicle of Austrian history

Thwo interesting links sent by the the Austrian Mediathek (Österreichischen Mediathek)

Chronicle of Austrian History

5000 hours of radio news online

EU digital content dreams

Thanks to the CEG for sending me this interesting snippet


Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Telecoms and Media, explains the "Digital Europe Strategy" in this speech, delivered on 9 July 2009:

Please find below an extract from the speech:
"Digital Europe can only be built with content creators on board; and with the generation of digital natives as interested users and innovative consumers .

I will give you two examples of what Europe could do concretely for this:
- First of all, we could facilitate the licensing of intellectual property rights for online services covering the territory of all 27 EU Member States . Today, right holders and online service providers need to spend far too much time and money on the administration of rights, instead of investing this money in attractive services. And consumers often cannot access online content if uploaded in another Member State. For online content in a single market of 27 Member States, economies of scale and consumer-friendly solutions will require a much simpler and less fragmented regulatory framework than the one of today. We had a similar problem when commercial satellite TV started more than 30 years ago. As right clearance for this per se cross-border service became increasingly complex, Europe developed the Cable and Satellite Directive and introduced a simplified system of rights clearance for the whole of Europe. I believe it is now time to develop similar solutions for the evolving world of online content.

- Second example: We should create a modern set of European rules that encourage the digitisation of books . More than 90% of books in Europe's national libraries are no longer commercially available, because they are either out of print or orphan works (which means that nobody can be identified to give permission to use the work digitally). The creation of a Europe-wide public registry for such works could stimulate private investment in digitisation, while ensuring that authors get fair remuneration also in the digital world. This would also help to end the present, rather ideological debate about "Google books". I do understand the fears of many publishers and libraries facing the market power of Google. But I also share the frustrations of many internet companies which would like to offer interesting business models in this field, but cannot do so because of the fragmented regulatory system in Europe. I am experiencing myself such frustrations in the context of the development of Europeana, Europe's digital library. Let us be very clear: if we do not reform our European copyright rules on orphan works and libraries swiftly, digitisation and the development of attractive content offers will not take place in Europe, but on the other side of the Atlantic . Only a modern set of consumer-friendly rules will enable Europe's content to play a strong part in the digitisation efforts that has already started all around the globe."


A full transcript of the speech can be found here

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

3G access maps UK

Archivists thinking of developing mobile access to archival objects etc reliant on 3G in the UK should take a good look at these coverage maps provided by Ofcom.

If you live in the west of Wales - better get a boat if you need 3G.

3G coverage maps here

ED-Cine pdfs

The presentations made at the EDCine workshop on 19 June 2009 in Brussels are available on-line:
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/reg/cinema/june09/archivali.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/reg/cinema/june09/archives_dcine.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/reg/cinema/june09/mxf.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/reg/cinema/june09/overview.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/reg/cinema/june09/practical.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/reg/cinema/june09/technology.pdf

Multilingual access to digital libraries

A workshop with the title 'MULTILINGUALITY IN INFORMATION ACCESS TO DIGITAL LIBRARIES USER NEEDS AND EVALUATION OF MULTILINGUAL RESOURCES USE', is being organised by the EuropeanaConnect project. It will be held in Trento, Italy, on 9 September 2009.

The event will bring together researchers, stakeholders, and representatives of pan-European digital library projects to discuss multilingual user needs, assessment methods for requirements, usage logging of multilingual resources use as well as practical implementation issues when incorporating multilingual capabilities into a digital library.

The workshop is organised within the context of the International Conference on Digital Libraries and the Semantic Web 2009

EuropeanaConnect is a Best Practice Network funded by the European Commission within the area of Digital Libraries of the eContentplus Programme.

further information about the workshop

Monday, July 6, 2009

Rural decline - the cinematic response

UK Film Council to pilot new cinema intiative for rural areas.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Sun is shining

Open digital archive solution from Sun

Give me back my colour

'All the Hues of Nature: Colour Film and Restoration'
Screening 6-8pm, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK,Friday 10th July 2009
Discussion Panel 5.30-6.30pm, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK, Saturday 11th July
2009.

'All the Hues of Nature' is a unique event designed to showcase colour
films from the first 50 years of cinema restored by the British Film
Institute National Archive and the Filmmuseum, nl.
The programme includes MAKING FASHION (GB Humphrey Jennings, 1938) a
celebration of English fashion design, dealing with the development of
Norman Hartnell's spring collection; L'INFERNO (Italy, Helios Film,
Velletri, Dir Giuseppe Berardi, 1911) the long thought lost (discovered in
the Vatican film library) 'other' version of Dante's Inferno made in 1911,
to cash in on the box-office success of an earlier version of 1909; and
PREKRASNAYA LYUKANIDA (Russian Empire, Dir. Ladislas STAREVITCH, 1912)
('Beautiful Leukanida' or 'Beetles') one of Ladislas Starevitch's
stop-frame animations of model beetles crafted from fragments of deer-skin,
wire and wood and manipulated into the passions and (im)moralities of human
impulses.

The films will be introduced by invited speakers including Bryony Dixon
(BFI), Tom Vincent (Aardman Animation) and Giovanna Fossati (Filmmuseum,
nl.) and will be accompanied by live music composed by Jean Hasse.

Tickets for the screening include access to a panel discussion on colour
and film restoration 5.30-6.30, Arnolfini, Saturday 11th July 2009.
The discussion will be chaired by Professor Tom Gunning (University of
Chicago). Panel participants include Sonia Genaitay (British Film
Institute), Giovanna Fossati (Filmmuseum, nl.), Daniela Currò (Haghe Film
Conservation B.V., Netherlands) and Josh Yumibe (Oakland University).

Tickets are available from the Arnolfini Box Office
Tel: 0117 917 2300/01
£6.00 (full price) £4.50 (concession)

Further details can be found here:


The screening and discussion panel are sponsored by Screen Journal as one
of its 50th Anniversary events and hosted by the Colour and the Moving
Image conference.