The aim of the group of applications developed as part of the InfoCities project was to:
- Capture the essence and particular qualities of everyday life in cities
- Provide access to cultural heritage materials thematically and/or by locality.
These applications were developed and tested in the cities of Antwerp, Bologna, Den Haag, Helsinki and Manchester. A modular approach was adopted which would allow cities different development options of the European base model.
- City Cultural Listings.
These include various options for presenting general listings - such as details of cultural institutions, collections and special exhibitions and events. - Virtual City Modelling.
Multimedia technologies have been used to create an introduction to the varied and diverse cultures of participating cities, building on the experience and input of people living in them. - Virtual Museum.
In Europe, there are many thousands of museums holding many millions of objects and archives. These vast repositories of material are of enormous significance for our sense of the past and our understanding of regional, national, European and international cultures and histories. Yet the collections are held in many different museums so that our sense of the past is often partial, fragmented by geographical and disciplinary boundaries and limited by lack of information. It can be only be fully realised through accessing and bringing together collections from many places and people.
With the new open architecture of interoperable systems, museums and galleries can continue to use their own legacy systems, but can enrich, exchange and share data and offer it to local and remote users in different forms according to their interests. They can also use the enhanced capabilities of multimedia internet technologies to provide richer information, integrating personal testimony with audio and 3-dimensional realisation.
Benefits of these Services
Education:
- Providing extensive and accessible information about museums' resources and collections, often for the first time
- Assisting a richer understanding of the cultural and personal histories of cities for the people who live in them and visit them
- Increasing residents' awareness and appreciation of their immediate and everyday surroundings.
Quality of Service:
- Creating flexible, multi-level resources and flexible query systems to allow for the interests and needs of different users
- Using 3d modelling and other technologies to re-construct environments which no longer exist and to allow users to manipulate and explore collections in detail.
Sustainability:
- Using new technologies to open up access to Europe's cultural heritage while preserving the collections themselves
- Promoting the collections of museums, to sustain and/or increase museum visiting and with the potential to generate income from commercial use of content.
European Benefits: Bringing together cities, histories and collections; making connections between different localities and cultures.
