As happens-in other fields, Cultural Heritage has experienced the introduction and diffusion of ICT. During the last ten years new extraordinary possibilities of access and fruition of digital resources. At the same time it has raised important technological and methodological issues.

 

National initiatives, like MINERVA or Cultural Internet, or international, like Econtentplus of the European Union, confirm the great interest institutions have in this topic. On top of preserving the cultural heritage, this is seen as an opportunity to develop cultural tourism, both actual and virtual.

 

CILEA has decided to work in the field of Cultural Heritage with its own offer. It has done so by combining its experience in similar fields (library automation, digital library, open archives) with its capability of developing and integrating services. Moreover, the Consortium has a deep knowledge of standards and protocols for filing and interoperability (MAG, METS, OAI-PMH and so on).

 

Concerning museums, CILEA started with some remarkable experiences (MUSIL) and it is building "e-museum", its own platform. E-museum is composed by modules and can be adapted to small and medium museums to increase their visibility on Internet.

 

CILEA also offers support for projects aiming at digitising papers and documents. It offers training, consulting for the choice of the hardware and software, and can itself provide specialised hardware and software. It is also possible to ask CILEA's staff to manage directly the digitalisation process.

 

In order to offer an integrated management of digital resources in this field, CILEA is designing a modular platform called GBC (Gestione Beni Culturali - Management of Cultural Heritage). The development of GBC is starting from the extension of some modules of CODEXml (a platform for the management of digitised documents), of e-museum and other systems (open archive, e-learning, digital library etc. It will offer a multi-object and multi-standard management of the whole management chain of digital resources.

 

Concerning research, CILEA has been involved in several projects in collaboration with universities. These concerned the creation of databases and web based repositories. At the moment CILEA is part of a three years FIRB Project (2005-2007) called "Ricostruire i commerci nel mediterraneo in epoca ellenistica e romana attraverso nuovi approcci scientifici e tecnologici" (understanding  trade in the Mediterranean region in Hellenic and Roman times by using new scientific and technological approaches). For this project, CILEA collaborates with the "La Sapienza University" of Rome.