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On
the panel:
T. Drexler, Tele Atlas Austria
G. Gartner, TU Vienna, Department of Cartography and Geo-Mediatechniques
W. Kraus, Vicedirector of Vienna Tourist Board
K. Schaller, Forschungsgesellschaft Wiener Stadtarchäologie
Z. Toncinic, Croatian National Tourist Office
The
Internet confronts those who are engaged in preserving, exploring
and communicating cultural assets with novel challenges -
both in giving and taking. For, in contrast to the traditional
publishing activities, the internet has made the cultural
heritage accessible to mankind without barriers as to time
or geography. In this respect novel approaches have to be
used - on the local as well as on the global level, by the
representatives of culture and of information technology alike.
In this respect two worlds with diverging requirements and
methods are to be linked - the two worlds being separated
by the following gaps:
1.
Communication problems between such diverging research lines.
2. Cultural assets can hardly be processed other than in text
form. To be presented in the internet, texts have to be concise,
which makes the representation of cultural phenomena very
difficult.
3. The manifold aspects of cultural assets - probably the
greatest obstacle to be overcome. It is the very complexity
of cultural assets that has doomed to failure any attempts
aiming at socalled holistic or integral solutions.
It
is no accident that a promising approach is provided by archeology,
since archeology is situated at the meeting point between
natural science and the humanities, at the interface of culture
and technology. Archeology has, above all, two solid positional
advantages: it deals with tangible objects which - and that
is even more important - are location-bound (localizability).
Localizability makes possible the full use of the mathematical,
graphic and measurement-technique systems which mankind has
developed since antiquity and which have been revolutionized
by the triumphant advance of information technology. This
opens a highly promising field, in which the developments
based on information technology (such as navigation systems)
can be utilized to full advantage in collecting, representing
and conveying cultural contents.
Among
the many benefitting therefrom will be those who have devoted
themselves to preserving, cultivating and exploring the cultural
heritage, those who wish to make its significance accessible
to wider sections (from schools to tourism), and those who
ask questions as to the past of mankind - the very distant
as well as the most recent past.
Fortified
by the experience with localizability we will be able to take
a further step towards the gathering and recording of additional
portions of the cultural heritage.
The
Workshop will be based on the experience with the "Kulturgüterkataster"
(register of cultural assets) of the Municipality of Vienna
as well as on the EU-subsidized project www.ubi-erat-lupa.org
, which is devoted, among others, to questions of the localization
of monuments of the Roman Empire and thus also to their exploitation
for tourism. By including representatives of all the branches
involved as well as of information technology and tourism,
the topic "Localizability and localization of the cultural
heritage" is to be treated on the widest possible base.
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