A new name and some talk about the Renaissance
The annual meeting of The Council of Content Providers and Aggregators took place last Tuesday in Rotterdam prior to DISH 2011.
The CPPA has grown over the past few year from 160 member to 305, hence there was a larger than ever turn out at the AGM.
The contents of the Renaissance report and its implications for the future of Europeana and related projects was a central issues that was presented and discussed during the day.
The new Europeana strategic plan for 2011-2015 was presented by Harry Verwayen of Europeana. The strategic plan will focus on four key themes: aggregation, facilitation, distribution and engagement.
In terms of aggregation, over the next four years, Europeana plans to extend its network of content providers and improve metadata standards in order to become an open trusted source of European heritage.
Facilitation will consist of growing knowledge transfer and innovation, as well as advocacy for the cultural heritage sector on issues such as orphan works.
Distribution involves a new focus on the user, wherever they are, and bringing Europeana into the users workflow as well as forming partnerships to target specific user groups.
Enabling users in finding news ways of participating with Europeana is the focus engagement, through virtual exhibitions, local events, and harnessing public-private partnership.
The meeting presented participants with the opportunity to engage with the themes of the strategic plan and contribute ideas on how they could be implemented.
One of the major outcomes of the meeting was the decision to change the name of the CCPA to the Europeana Network. The name change also reflects changes in the structure of the council.
Europeana Pro, a new knowledge sharing platform to support Europeana content providers and facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge about the digitisation of cultural heritage,was also launched on the day.
