CIPA 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September-04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey
they are relevant, meeting agreed criteria and
satisfying real needs by providing added value.
- standards are responsive to the real world; they are
available, current technology and do not unnecessarily
invalidate existing products or processes
- Standards are performance based, specifying essential
characteristics rather than detailed designs.
The most compelling reason for using standards is protecting
the long-term value of data as well as acting as a basis for
sharing information.
In addition, since more and more cultural heritage centres
throughout the world invest in documenting their collections
(e.g. museums, archives, libraries), often with sophisticated new
technologies, the need for standards to manage the information
these collections contain becomes more and more urgent
(Bower et al., 2001).
Acknowledging the existing standardization efforts done in the
area of cultural heritage by several bodies, this paper will avoid
stating commonplaces. Rather, the aim of this paper is to raise
awareness regarding the emerging importance of
standardization in cultural heritage on the international scale
and aid in the effort to build the basis for an international
voluntary consensus type standard.
Motivation for this effort is a result of years of collaboration of
the authors in different areas of cultural heritage, where the
need for data analysis, sorting, indexing, retrieving and
exchange was identified
2. STANDARDIZATION: THE WAY FORWARD
The days where a kilobyte was regarded as ‘a lot of data, and
10 Megabytes was an ‘enormous database’ are a recent
memory.
Today, however, the whole world is dealing with databases of
multiple terabytes. -If one considers the internet revolution and
the end of the previous century and its dramatic growth the last
few years, one can easily realize the enormous amount of data
circulating the globe every day. The on-line “complex
multimedia encyclopedia” with millions of computers,
databases and information worldwide connected together
providing information and data are a challenge to any user
attempting to crop out valuable information. When there are
millions of archaeological sites, billion of archaeological
items/artifacts distributed all over the world and each one of
these has its own unique idiomorphic/situation/
complexity/civilization of description (like excavation reports, -
pictures, manufacturing technology, originality, substance-
materials, etc) how can one come to an easy, quick and
meaningful conclusion about this piece and especially about a
special civilization when there are thousands of archaeological
departments and museums around the world using individual
methods of documentation, archiving, restoration and
exhibitions? How can someone use the efficiency of the 21 s1
century IT to have an easy, quick and meaningful access to
several terabytes of worldwide civilization data?
It is a fact that there are thousands of archaeologists, historians,
anthropologists, scientists, researchers, restaurateurs and
students working and/ or researching at different places, using
individual methods of reporting, documenting and archiving
and as a result it is not surprising to establish that much of their
hard work and effort is not available to different interested
parties. This situation becomes even worse when the majority
of the above mentioned experts have neither the IT tools nor an
unlimited access to the Internet as well as the knowledge of
how IT can be a useful device/mechanism in their work.
There is, however, a tested solution to this problem, a bridge to
unite these islands of research exists in the documentation of
cultural heritage and that is through the use of modern
information technology tools, specifically through the use of
worldwide accepted formats of structuring data.
It is at this point where IT and cultural heritage experts must
come together to build the foundation for a new digital
documentation format which can be used for archiving and
catalogizing that can be accessed by all - everywhere around
the world and at any time of the day. The laying of the first
stone will pave the way to success in creating and developing
the encyclopedia of worldwide civilizations. The large amounts
of data that are required in order to acknowledge or recreate
these civilizations can be efficiently managed, updated and
distributed through the use of IT.
IT and the creation of standardization in this area of
documentation can also address other obstacles in the cultural
heritage sector, such as language (use of virtual
lexicas/glossaries/dictionaries, e-Translators), legal and
regulatory issues (identification methods), lack of knowledge of
standardization methods by experts (e-Education/Learning),
lack of a national/regional/international initiation as well as
technical and infrastructure issues.
3. STANDARDIZATION: THE STATE OF THE ART
Every government in each country is currently facing new
challenges in all areas which affect its own society. The
increasing concern for health and safety, the protection of the
environment and the protection of cultural heritage, combined
with dramatic increases in world trade and competition have
brought to light the importance of standardization while at the
same time altering the national/international needs. The
European Union, USA, Japan and other international societies
(like IEEE or VDI) are successfully promoting their technology
and practices in these developing areas to other nations around
the world through their own standards (protocols) and processes
through their national representation (ANSI, SLBS, DIN,
ELOT, BSI, etc ) in the international standards activities of the
European Committee for Standardization (CEN), European
Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC),
European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI),
International Standard Organization (ISO: from Greek
Toog=equal), the International Electro-technical Commission
(IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Furthermore, such organizations have the ability to provide on
line information on technical standards/protocols, and -
regulations and conformity assessment procedures which can be
obtained globally. This aspect of service is necessary to ensure
that the private sector, exporters, government
departments/agencies and the general public are kept abreast
with these trends and developments which have the capacity to
affect their competitiveness (ISO, ANSI, VDI, CEN).
Emerging economies with the potential for explosive growth
are looking to and adopting ISO, CEN and IEC standards.
