CIP A 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey 
2.2 e-heritage - critical mass is the way forward 
2.2.1 The e-heritage vision of “anybody, anything, anytime, 
anyhow” is therefore far from being achieved. Instead we have 
witnessed an under-funded, fragmented effort by a handful of 
organisations in a number of countries. This will clearly not 
deliver the promise of e-heritage. If not, then what will? 
2.2.2 It is proposed that e-heritage be converted from a 
vision into a concrete project, a collaborative effort that will 
produce deliverables. The detailed organisation of this project 
is the subject of a separate paper but, broadly speaking: 
2.2.2.1 e-heritage attempts to bring together enough 
leading institutions in the field of cultural heritage to provide 
the critical mass necessary to succeed together in those areas 
where any single member would find it impossible to achieve 
alone. 
2.2.2.2 e-heritage also builds upon successful national 
and European pilot projects to further increase critical mass and 
the level of networking within the cultural heritage sector. The 
e-heritage project must be examined in a context of a highly 
fragmented European scenario where each country has only one 
(or never more than a handful) of hopelessly under-funded 
institutions which alone simply cannot arrest the ravages of 
time on historical sites and artefacts. 
2.2.2.3 Put simply, in unity there is strength, and e- 
heritage has a better chance of being achieved through the 
efforts of a consortium of organisations across a number of 
countries rather than through the efforts of any single entity 
acting in isolation. The Malta Centre for Restoration (MCR) is 
providing the home-base for, and has embarked upon the 
creation of, a consortium which has as its main aim, making e- 
heritage a reality. 
3. CONCRETE DELIVERABLES FOR E-HERITAGE 
3.1 E-learning within e-heritage 
3.1.1 Small (and sometimes even large) European countries 
have often proven incapable of organizing undergraduate and 
especially post-graduate education in applied conservation of 
cultural heritage. Eg. A Masters degree in conservation science 
(diagnostics) is an expensive option both for students as well as 
for institutions. 
3.1.2 Experts in the field capable of teaching are hard to find 
and often difficult to group within a single institution. 
3.1.3 Imagine instead a network of institutions all linked 
together using satellite-enabled video-conferencing (SEVC) or 
(where-available) TBVC (Terrestrial Broadband Video- 
Conferencing). The broadband service thus made immediately 
available permits the e-heritage project to combine SEVC. 
TBVC and e-learning techniques via internet to create a virtual 
classroom where the best teachers from different institutions 
can offer their own specialisms to students spread across a 
number of other students in the network who otherwise would 
never had the opportunity to access such a first-class education. 
3.2 New forms of collaboration for research projects 
3.2.1 Once connected via a common infrastructure, 
researchers in different institutions participating in e-heritage 
can come together to work in a multitude of research projects. 
Networking across Europe, say co-developing a new protective 
coating for metals or stone, becomes as easy as walking down 
the corridor of one’s home institution towards the SEVC- 
equipped room and meeting one’s co-researchers in a multi 
way video-conference. Research Working Group Meetings 
become more regular, cheaper and more productive. 
3.2.2 Once integrated into a single virtual community, 
institutions within the e-heritage network can work together to 
design and produce databases replete with text, 2D and 3D 
images of heritage sites and artifacts. The databases will 
incorporate innovative criteria such as didactic value and risk 
assessment while recording and monitoring the success or 
otherwise of a variety of intervention techniques. Thus 
conservator-restorers in a variety of institutions can tap into a 
wealth of knowledge hitherto unavailable. 
3.3 Resource management across national boundaries 
3.3.1 The broadband network available will also enable 
instant access to these databases and permit hitherto impossible 
resource management. 
3.3.2 One or more institutions will be able to set up 
expensive 1CT data processing resources and put them at the 
disposal of all members of the e-heritage network. This would 
greatly reduce the need for investment in multi-user hardware 
and software in most participating institutions. 
3.3.3 Once set-up, these databases would also be web- 
enabled with a multi-tiered structure that would permit both 
institutional workers, SMEs and conservator-restorers working 
as sole practitioners to log in anywhere, on site or at home to 
document their projects or carry out research on successful 
intervention techniques. 
3.3.4 Heritage workers in different countries face similar 
problems when it comes to documentation of cultural heritage 
sites and artifacts. The e-heritage network will permit 
unprecedented resource-management across the whole 
consortium: 
3.3.4.1 Advanced 3D imaging techniques today depend 
on expensive (Euro 300,000) data acquisition equipment which 
is used for 15% of a project’s requirements and then relatively 
inexpensive PC technology for the post-processing that makes 
up 85% of the documentation project’s needs. 
3.3.4.2 The e-heritage network will permit the know 
how transfer and expensive data acquisition technology to be 
shared by many institutions in many countries and the labour- 
intensive post-processing to be farmed out to such spare 
capacity as may exist amongst participating institutions and 
individuals.