On May 15 at the University of Daugavpils with the event “Cultural and memory institutions for the Digital Library: the public and legal accessibility of the digital cultural heritage will conclude Digital Library of Latvia (digitalabiblioteka.lv) inaugural event cycle in the regions of Latvia. The event in Daugavpils is organised by the Digital Library partner organisation – Culture Information Systems Centre – in cooperation with Latgale Central Library.
The event will highlight the importance of the widest possible and public accessibility of cultural heritage online, thus ensuring equal access for the public to cultural content and promoting its use in education and tourism, as well as diverse and creative re-use. Together with the importance of access to digital cultural heritage, let us also raise the issue of legal access. In order to help specialists of cultural and memory institutions determine the copyright status of objects in stock, at the same time as the creation of the Digital Library, a Copyright Management and Licensing information system has been created, which addresses the identification of copyright and access rights and extends the opportunities for citizens to use cultural heritage online.
The event will be opened by the Chairman of Daugavpils City Council Andrejs Elksnins, Director of the Culture Information Systems Centre Armands Magone and Director of the Digital Development Department of the National Library of Latvia Karina Bandere. Presentations will tell you about content and search opportunities available in the Digital Library, including heritage stored in archives located in the Digital Library and the digitisation of cultural monuments, as well as solutions and practical tools for ensuring the legal availability of content. However, in the second part of the event representatives of different regional organisations will share their experience regarding the creation of a cultural heritage offer in the public space and will tell about their vision for building co-operation in order to promote accessibility and utilisation of the heritage to the widest possible range of society, including tourism development.
The leading partners of the digital library are the National Archives of Latvia, the Culture Information Systems Centre, the National Heritage Board and the National Library of Latvia. The Digital Library currently has more than 3.8 million digital units available from archives, museums, libraries, various cultural institutions, as well as private collections. The site dates back seven years and was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Latvian State.
The digital library meets cultural heritage, stories and people.