Heritage Malta is taking part in a project called SmartMuseum funded under the FP7 programme. The project seeks to develop IT solutions for smartphones and PDAs that enhance on-site access to digital cultural heritage, by providing personalized visit recommendations and selecting information based on the visitor’s interest profile, thus taking full advantage of digitised cultural information available.

Heritage Malta gave a presentation on this project during The Third International Conference on Advances in Semantic Processing recently held in Malta. After the presentation the participants visited the National Museum of Fine Arts for a demonstration of the system.

The trial of this system is being undertaken at the National Museum of Fine Arts, where about 600 collection objects have been digitised and catalogued. Heritage Malta has purchased and helped develop a customised cataloguing system code named MUSES.

This has allowed Heritage Malta to catalogue its artefacts at the National Museum of Fine Arts according to international standards known as the Categories for Descriptions of Works of Art (CDWA). This has allowed the researchers to catalogue the artefacts at Heritage Malta’s National Museum of Fine Arts according to international standards known as the Categories for Descriptions of Works of Art (CDWA), a product of the Art Information Task Force (AITF) funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust.

CDWA describes the content of art databases by articulating a conceptual framework for describing and accessing information about works of art, architecture, other material culture, groups and collections of works, and related images. The technical merits of this project and databases are being undertaken by Projects in Motion Ltd. which was awarded the contract following a public call.

This project is part-funded by the European Commission within the IST priority of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.

Heritage Malta is participating in other digitalisation projects. These include the 3D documentation at the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the Semantic We-based Thematic European reference network Application (STERNA), Access to Cultural Heritage Networks across Europe (ATHENA), CARARE-3D – CIP.

To participate in these programmes Heritage Malta is constantly enriching its digital library of over 1,000,000 digital assets in the form of images, documents and videos related to Malta’s National Collection. This is acheived by the Documentation and ICT department, using innovative techniques and equipment in the field of digitisation.

The department also services the Conservation Division in the field of documentation of conservation and restoration interventions through services such as Infra Red and Ultra Violet photography, and Computer Aided Design technology. For more information about these initiative contact Mr. Noel Zammit, ICT & Documentation Manager on +356 23954203 / noel.zammit@gov.mt

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