The European Commission funded ERPANET Project will establish an expandable European Consortium, which will make viable and visible information, best practice and skills development in the area of digital preservation of cultural heritage and scientific objects. ERPANET will bring together memory organisations (museums, libraries and archives), ICT and software industry, research institutions, government organisations (including local ones), entertainment and creative industries, and commercial sectors (including for example pharmaceuticals, petro-chemical, and financial). The dominant feature of ERPANET will be the provision of a virtual clearinghouse and knowledge-base on state-of-the-art developments in digital preservation and the transfer of that expertise among individuals and institutions.
ERPANET will enhance the preservation of cultural heritage and scientific objects through nine core objectives. It:
The ERPANET project aims to establish an expandable and self-sustaining European Initiative, which will serve as a virtual clearinghouse and knowledge-base in the area of preservation of cultural heritage and scientific digital objects.
The dominant feature of ERPANET will be the exchanging of knowledge on state-of-the-art developments in digital preservation and the transfer of expertise among individuals and institutions. More specifically ERPANET will deliver a range of services (e.g. content creation, advisory service, training and thematic workshops and fora), both to information creation and user community. It will make accessible tools, knowledge, and experience. ERPANET will not directly carry out new research to develop such tools, but it will create a coherent platform for proactive co-operation, collaboration, exchange and dissemination of research results and experience in the preservation of digital objects. It will bring together research institutions, memory organisations, ICT industry, entertainment and creative (e.g. broadcasting) industries and provide effective, multidisciplinary, knowledge and resource-sharing infrastructure.
ERPANET consists of four nodes and is managed by a Management Board and an Advisory Committee.
Additionally, ERPANET is pleased to be in partnership with:
The Advisory Committee, which meets once a year to guide ERPANET, has the following membership:
Director@erpanet.org
HATII
University of Glasgow
Seamus Ross, Director of Humanities Computing and Information Management at the University of Glasgow, runs HATII (Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute) (http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk) of which he is the founding director. Currently he is also Principal Director of ERPANET (Electronic Resource Preservation and Network) (IST-2001-32706) a European Commission activity to enhance the preservation of cultural heritage and scientific digital objects (http://www.erpanet.org). He is a lead partner in The Digital Culture Forum (DigiCULT Forum, IST-2001-34898), which works to improve the take-up of cutting edge research and technology by the cultural heritage sector (http://www.digicult.info). He leads the preservation cluster in DELOS2, an FP6 Network of Excellence for Digital Libraries. Before joining the University of Glasgow he was Head of ICT at the British Academy and before that a technologist at a company that specialised in knowledge engineering. He holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Among his recent projects was a review of National Library of New Zealand's digital library development activity see http://www.natlib.govt.nz/files/ross_report.pdf.
Director@erpanet.org
Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv
Niklaus Bütikofer studied history in Bern and Berlin. He worked for 15 years as an archivist and head of the section information safeguarding in the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern. During this time he was responsible with his section for audit and advice in records management within the Swiss government administration and for selection and transfer of all types of records to the archives. Under the project name of ARELDA the section was also developing procedures and tools for archiving electronic records. Niklaus Bütikofer has now a teaching assignment for records and archives management in Bern, and works as a consultant.
Director@erpanet.org
ISTBAL,
Università degli Studi di Urbino
Maria Guercio is a full professor in archival science and electronic record management at the University of Urbino where she entered in 1998. For twenty years (1978-1998) she worked as State archivist for the Ministry of Cultural Heritage where she cooperated with the Authority for information technology in the public administration to define the Italian legislation related to the electronic recordkeeping systems. She chaired the ICA Committee on current records (1990-1992) and part of che Committee on program management of the ICA itself. She chaired the Italian team for the international project INTERPARES 1 (1999-2001). She is a co-director of the European project ERPANET, a network for digital preservation. She runs many Italian projects funded by the Ministry for research in the area of digital preservation. She takes part part of the DELOS project with specific reference to the preservation workpackage. Since 2002, she is the director of the journal "Archivi & computer".
Director@erpanet.org
Nationaal Archief van Nederland
Hans Hofman is co-director of ERPANET and senior advisor at the Nationaal Archief (National Archives) of the Netherlands. In his position at the Nationaal Archief he is involved in e-government projects and initiatives throughout Dutch government with respect to access and management of digital records and information in general. On the international scene he is co-investigator and representative of the Nationaal Archief in the Inter Pares 2 research project, and representative of the Netherlands in the ISO TC46/SC11 on Records Management. Within this committee he is chair of the Working Group on Records Management metadata. Finally, he is a researcher in the Delos 2 project on digital libraries with respect to digital preservation. He has given numerous presentations and written many articles on topics like digital preservation, recordkeeping metadata and electronic records management.
Coordinator@erpanet.org
HATII,
University of Glasgow
Peter McKinney is Projects Coordinator at HATII. Primarily he ensures the coordination of ERPANET (Electronic Resource Preservation and Network, www.erpanet.org) which is a key international player in the area of digital preservation. Most recently the project has been comparatively studying the integration of digital preservation strategies within companies and institutions. He has taught on HATII’s successful digitisation summer school at various international venues, and also teaches within HATII on ICT in Cultural Heritage and the exploration of the ethnography of cyberspace. He consulted on the Scottish Webmapping Initiative report to the Scottish Executive, and was part of the team that developed the NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation & Management of Cultural Heritage Materials.
Dutch.editor@erpanet.org
Nationaal Archief van Nederland
Dutch2.editor@erpanet.org
Nationaal Archief van Nederland
Swiss.editor@erpanet.org
Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv
British.editor@erpanet.org
HATII,
University of Glasgow
Italian.editor@erpanet.org
ISTBAL,
Università degli Studi di Urbino
Italian.editor@erpanet.org
ISTBAL,
Università degli Studi di Urbino
webmaster@erpanet.org
HATII,
University of Glasgow
Adam Rusbridge is the current webmaster of the ERPANET website, which sits well alongside his longer term role as an ERPANET Technical Analyst. This requires the analysis and reviewing of tools, projects and techniques related to digital preservation. He is now also working with the Digital Curation Centre, assisting the development of a Representation Information Registry and Repository.
