Personal Work Space and Content Analysis Functionality in a Cultural Heritage Digital Library

The paper presents a different vision for personalization of the user’s stay in a cultural heritage digital library that models services for personalized content marking, commenting and analyzing that doesn’t require strict user profile, but aims at adjusting the user’s individual needs. The solution is borrowed from real work and studying of traditional written content sources (incl. books, manuals), where the user mainly performs activities such as underlining the important parts of the content, writing notes and inferences, selecting and marking zones of their interest in pictures, etc. In the paper a special attention is paid to the ability to execute learning analysis allowing different ways for the user to experience the digital library content with more creative settings.

Learning by Doing in the Context of Modern Information and Media Literacy of Students in “Library and Information Management” in ULSIT Using the Digital Collection “Bulgarian Revival”

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the effectiveness of learning by doing as a practical tool for managing the training of students in "Library Management" at the ULSIT, Sofia, Bulgaria, by using the creation of project 'Data Base “Bulgarian Revival Towns” (CD), financed by Bulgarian Ministry of Education, Youth and Science (1/D002/144/13.10.2011) headed by Prof. DSc Ivanka Yankova, which aims to create new information resource for the towns which will serve the needs of scientific researches. By participating in generating the an array in the database through searching, selection and digitization of documents from these period, at the same time students get an opportunity to expand their skills to work effectively in a team, finding the interdisciplinary, a causal connection between the studied items, objects and subjects and foremost – practical experience in the field of digitization, information behavior, strategies for information search, etc. This method achieves good results for the accumulation of sustainable knowledge and it generates motivation to work in the field of library and information professions.

Digital Right Management (DRM) and Library Copyright Policy

The purpose of this paper is to introduce Digital Rights Management (DRM) and its implications for content producers, consumers, and libraries. Simply stated, DRM is a technology that allows copyright owners to regulate and manage their content when it is disseminated in a digital format, and it is the reason why some patrons cannot access some of the downloadable digital content provided by libraries. In the first part of this paper, we provide a short introduction to DRM by outlining the entities, the various technologies used as well as usage restrictions that come with DRM. In the second part of the paper are discussed the alternatives for the libraries, using DRM as a tool for library copyright policy and the main documents, which present the position of library organizations towards information legislation.

Students’ Digital Archive at the State University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, Sofia

The paper describes the creation and content of the digital archive of photographs, films and materials from fieldwork (interviews, surveys, and observations) of students from the Information Funds of the Cultural and Historical Heritage program at the State University of Library Studies and Information Technologies, Sofia, Bulgaria. The text discusses the educational opportunities of the archive, and the plans for publishing it as CD and for conversion into an electronic archive on the Internet.

Digital Humanities: Challenges of the Transformation of Tools and Objects of Knowledge in Contemporary Humanities

This paper aims to sketch some bases for the problematization of digital tools as objects of knowledge for Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). Our purpose is to raise some relevant questions about the Digital Humanities (DH) and how SSH and Computer Sciences (CS) can work together to face new challenges. We discuss some tension points and propose a model for SSH and CS collaboration for joint projects in cultural digitization.

3D Reconstruction and Digital Visualization of the South of the Royal Palace in Great Preslav

The report presents the film 10th century. The South of the Royal Palace in Great Preslav. It consists of two parts – 10th century. The Royal Palace in Great Prelsav. The Square with the Pinnacle and The Ruler’s Lodgings. 3D and virtual reconstructions of an architectural ensemble – part of the Preslav Royal Court unearthed during archaeological researches are used in the film. 3D documentaries have already gained popularity around the world and are well received by both scholars and the public at large. One of the distinguished tourist destinations in Bulgaria is Great Preslav – capital of the mediaeval Bulgarian state and a significant cultural center of the European Southeast in 9th–10th centuries, too. The first part of the film is created with the financial support of America for Bulgaria Foundation and the second – with the funding of Bulgarian National Science Fund at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science. A team of almost 20 members worked on the film, including computer specialists, professional actors, and translators in the four main European languages – English, German, French and Russian, Trima Sound Recording Studio. In the first part of the 3D film are shown a segment of the Royal Palace, the square with the water pinnacle and the adjacent buildings – an important structural element of the town-planning of the Preslav Court center in the 10th century. In the second part the accent is the southern part of the Royal Palace in Great Preslav, where the personal residence of the Preslav ruler’s dynasty is situated. The work on the virtual reconstruction was done by Virtual Archaeology club at the Mathematical School, Shumen. Due to the efforts of its members it is now clear how the square in front of the southern gate looked like.

Trends in Digital Cultural Heritage Management and Applications

We present some recent trends in the field of digital cultural heritage management and applications including digital cultural data curation, interoperability, open linked data publishing, crowd sourcing, visualization, platforms for digital cultural heritage, and applications. We present some examples from research and development projects of MUSIC/TUC in those areas.

PanamaTipico.com: a Born Digital Initiative for Researching and Preserving Panama’s Cultural Heritage

This paper reflects on the experience of PanamaTipico.com, an independent website specialized in the research and preservation of the cultural heritage of the Republic of Panama, a developing country located in Central America. Basic information about the project is described. Also discussed, are some of the challenges confronted by the project and the results achieved. The goal of this paper is to encourage a discussion on whether or not the experience of Pan-amaTipico.com is comparable to the experiences of similar projects in developing countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Digital Creativity: Advantages, Problems, Responsibilities

The paper focuses on the rapid development of the digital culture and the challenges it imposes to human creativity. It analyses e-learning, digital entertainment, digital art and the issues of creativity and improvisation. It also presents a classification of the levels in the creative structure including hardware and software tools; product developers; creators and end users. Special attention is paid to the advantages of the new digital culture and the responsibilities of all people who create it or use it. We conclude that more attention should be paid to the threats and to ways of boosting positive creativity in the various fields of application of information and communication technologies.

Mobile Search and Advertising

Mobile advertising is a rapidly growing sector providing brands and marketing agencies the opportunity to connect with consumers beyond traditional and digital media and instead communicate directly on their mobile phones. Mobile advertising will be intrinsically linked with mobile search, which has transported from the internet to the mobile and is identified as an area of potential growth. The result of mobile searching show that as a general rule such search result exceed 160 characters; the dialog is required to deliver the relevant portion of a response to the mobile user. In this paper we focus initially on mobile search and mobile advert creation, and later the mechanism of interaction between the user’s request, the result of searching, advertising and dialog.

GUIDE@HAND: Digital GPS Based Audio Guide that Brings the Past to Life

In the digital age the internet and the ICT devices changed our daily life and routines. It means we couldn't live without these services and devices anywhere (work, home, holiday, etc.). It can be experienced in the tourism sector; digital contents become key tools in the tourism of the 21st century; they will be able to adapt the traditional tourist guide methodology to the applications running on novel digital devices. Tourists belong to a new generation, an "ICT generation" using innovative tools, a new info-media to communicate. A possible direction for tourism development is to use modern ICT systems and devices. Besides participating in classical tours guided by travel guides, there is a new opportunity for individual tourists to enjoy high quality ICT based guided walks prepared on the knowledge of travel guides. The main idea of the GUIDE@HAND service is to use reusable, and create new tourism contents for an advanced mobile device, in order to give a contemporary answer to traditional systems of tourism information, by developing new tourism services based on digital contents for innovative mobile applications. The service is based on a new concept of enhancing territorial heritage and values, through knowledge, innovation, languages and multilingual solutions going along with new tourists‟ “sensitiveness”.

Links and Hubs of Scientific Information – the Case of the MTMT

We present the Hungarian National Scientific Bibliography project: the MTMT. We argue that presently available commercial systems cannot be used as a comprehensive national bibliometric tool. The new database was created from existing databases of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, but expected to be re-engineered in the future. The data curation model includes harvesting, the work of expert bibliographers and author feedback. MTMT will work together with the other services in the web of scientific information, using standard protocols and formats, and act as a hub. It will present the scientific output of Hungary together with the repositories containing the full text, wherever available. The database will be open, but not freely harvestable, and only for non-commercial use.

Social - Oriented Applications of the Folklore Heritage for the Needs of the Non-formal Learning and Cultural Tourisms

The report presents a description of the most popular digital folklore archives in the world. Specifications for designing and developing web-based social-oriented applications in the field of education and cultural tourism are formulated on the basis of comparative analysis. A project for structuring and categorizing the content is presented. A website for accessing the digital folklore archive is designed and implemented.

Bulgarian Folk Songs in a Digital Library

The paper presents the main results of an ongoing project aimed at the development of technologies for digitization of Bulgarian folk music and building a heterogeneous digital library with Bulgarian folk songs presented with their music, notes and text. An initial digitization and preservation of the Bulgarian cultural heritage starts by means of digitization and insertion into the library of over 1000 songs that were recorded and written down during the 60s and 70s of XX century. Also we present a full text search engine in a collection of lyrics (text of songs) and coded notes (symbolic melody). Some perspectives for future projects are also discussed.

Research of the Acoustic Characteristics of the Bell "Mazepa" of the Sofia Cathedral (Kiev) and their Comparison with Characteristics of Bulgarian Bells

Experimental researches of one of the eldest bells («Mazepa»-see Appendix1) in Ukraine, are considered in the article. The spectra and spectra- time analysis of bell ringing is embodied, main frequencies of oscillation and musical intervals of sounding are determined. Comparative description of bell sounding with the known bells of Russia and Bulgaria is given.