Developer | Ministry of Digital Governance |
Operator | Ministry of Digital Governance – GENERAL SECRETARIAT FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND POST |
Budget | € 1.096.000,00 excluding VAT |
What is the object of the project?
The object of the project is the creation of an integrated digital knowledge and culture repository, which will include all the philatelic exhibits and the historical archive of the Philatelic and Postal Museum. The digital repository shall be digitally available and electronically accessible via the internet by the general public as well as by the research, educational and academic community. In order to achieve the main objectives of the project, digitization, systematic electronic documentation and production of digital educational derivatives by applying and using state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICT) are required.
The project consists of the following phases:
- Digitization of philatelic exhibits, historical archive – documents
The collection of philatelic exhibits is housed and exhibited in special showcases and storage areas in the museum. The wealth of both the thematic areas they cover and their artistic value (by important Greek engravers) make them unique and priceless, (in the sense that if they are destroyed they cannot be replaced), classifying them as works of art. Digitization shall be carried out by a special book scanner or camera depending on their material. Digitization using the book scanner is considered suitable for paper exhibits such as stamp sheets, feuillets, first-day covers,etc. Specialized digital photography is required mainly for the metal objects in the collection such as clichés and medals.
The archival material of the Philatelic and Postal Museum to be digitized consists of unbound documents and ledgers that make up the Historical Archive of the Greek Post Office and their content concerns the relevant social and political activity sectors. Such documents cover the period from 1901 to 1930. The digitization shall be carried out both by a flatbed scanner as well as by a special book scanner depending on the material, i.e. unbound, bound documents, etc.
- Documentation – digital repository
The documentation shall take place at various levels and stages of logical continuity and always in relation to the software program that will be configured and will constitute the digital repository.
Specifically:
(a) the digital substitute will be indexed in order to ensure that it can be found when searched in the repository and then the fields of the documentation (metadata) that will accompany the digital document at the first level will be defined;
(b) the functions of the software that will manage the database and which will support the basic functions of adding, correcting and deleting resources as well as basic information retrieval queries will be defined. In addition, it will include a subsystem for adding and managing hardware documentation;
(c) ontologies will be developed using the results of the first level of the documentation.
The aim is to link the information included in the digitized documents of all categories, i.e. to connect this information in a single environment in such a way that the users of the system (documentalists, researchers, etc.) can access information from various archives. The thesaurus of terms (the ontology) will support advanced information search and extraction techniques using language technology tools e.g. morphological dictionary to identify all types of an entry. The thesaurus that will be created will be based on the metadata that will accompany the digital cultural material. It will be possible to use it for the further documentation and annotation (annotation) of any related material.
- Repository development
Open source software will be used and utilized in order to save resources and use them to configure and upgrade the individual systems, based on the specific needs of the project.
Metadata interoperability shall be the core of the repository application.
- Development of two educational applications (web and mobile)
By using state-of-the-art IT tools, educational applications will be created to display the Museum’s content for both children and adults.
- Supply of equipment
To implement digitization and documentation, appropriate hardware and software equipment are required, respectively, which shall be procured for the smooth running of the project.
- Training
The staff of the Museum shall be trained in both equipment and software programs for the purpose of managing the repository as is and in the future, should it be enriched by new features.
- Promotion – Publicity
In order to disseminate and communicate the results of the project, a Publicity Action Plan shall be drawn up including a publicity action schedule (for instance, digital marketing actions including promotion of the Action/project on electronic media and social media, printing of an information brochure and poster, etc.), which it will be implemented in the context of a separate phase and then the process and results of the Publicity Actions shall be evaluated.
What is the purpose and objectives of the project implementation?
The object of this Action is the creation of an integrated digital knowledge and culture repository, which will include all the philatelic exhibits and the historical archive of the Philatelic and Postal Museum. The digital repository shall be digitally available and electronically accessible via the internet by the general public as well as by the research, educational and academic community.
In order to achieve the above, digitization, systematic electronic documentation and production of digital educational derivatives by applying and using state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICT) are required.
The project consists of the following Phases, which are in full synergy, relevance and complementarity with each other.