cIMeC in Brief
The Institute for Cultural Memory - cIMeC is a public institution established in 1978 as a national organization for the cultural heritage digital record. Sience the 1st of March 2010 it is a branch of the Center for Professional Training in Culture.
The main mission of the institute is to investigate, develop and make use of the information and communication technology in the field of cultural heritage.
cIMeC is a member of ICOM (International Council of Museums), SIBMAS (International Association of Libraries, Museums and Performing Arts), ELAG (European Library Automation Group), HEREIN (European Heritage Network) and EPOCH European Network of Excellence for Open Cultural Heritage.
Chronology:
1978– established on the 15th of March 1978 (as a small computing office of the Ministry of Culture), with the goal of implementing the information system for mobile national cultural heritage record.
1981– it becomes the Computing Centre for Culture, especially for the computerized documentation of the cultural heritage.
1982– begins the implementation of the information System for the Movable Cultural Heritage Record (SI-PCN) and the System for the Theatrical Repertoire Record in Romania (STAR)
1990– becomes the Centre of Informatics, Cultural Memory and Synthesis (CIMEC), a public legal entity, financed on contractual basis, and directly subordinated to the Ministry of Culture;
1996- inaugurates the website of the cultural heritage in Romania, www.cimec.ro (over 1.5 million visitors last year)
1998– changes the name to the Institute for Cultural Memory, keeping the CIMEC abbreviation, already established in this country and abroad.
2008– the 30 year anniversary from its foundation.
2009, August – reorganized as branch of the Centre for Professional Training in Culture
Over the time, CIMEC developed a professional team specialized in cultural documentation and computer applications, composed of experts in heritage documentation (archaeologists, bibliologists, historians, art historians, ethnographers); computer specialists (system engineers, computer programmers, database administrators); assistant computer specialists in data processing. Besides these, in time a team of associates emerged, specialists in various fields of cultural heritage.
Specific activities:
· collects, processes, stores and disseminates information on the movable and immovable cultural heritage, theatrical repertoire, cultural institutions and individuals, bibliographic references and cultural activities;
· manages the national heritage databases, the National Archaeological Record and other computerized cultural information resources;
· develops work tools for the heritage collections record (object descriptions guidelines, data standards, thesauri, authority files, applications, etc.);
· publishes a wide range of publications in digital and classical format;
· provides information and specialized support for museums, libraries and other cultural institutions, documentation and information services;
· coordinates cultural heritage documentation projects and participates in various regional and European projects.
CIMEC digital resources (2010):
CIMEC owns and manages the main information resources in digital form for the Romanian cultural heritage. These include:
Movable heritage:
The national movable cultural heritage database likely to be classified (SI-PCN) – about 760,000 entries
Movable cultural goods classified in the National Cultural Heritage – about 23,000 entries
National union catalogue of Romanian rare books – 35,350 items (4,460 titles)
Incunabula Catalogue – about 1,700 items (1,347)
Immovable heritage:
Ethnographic monuments in open air museums – about 1,400 items
Places of worship in Romania – about 18,500 entries
National Archaeological Record (RAN) – about 15,000 sites
Reference resources:
Museums and Collections database – about 820 institutions
National Cultural Heritage specialists and experts database – about 4,010 names
Thesauri – about 23,000 terms
Archaeological excavations reports (1983 – 2008) – 3,500 reports
Theatre Repertoire in Romania (1945 - 2010) – 12,500 entries
Archives:
-
Central Paper Cards Archive of the movable cultural heritage and the photo archive – about 500,000 documents (223,000 old cards, 140,000 new cards, 140,000 photographs).
The CIMEC website (http://www.cimec.ro), opened in May 1996, is the main portal of the Romanian cultural heritage, including: museums, movable cultural heritage, archaeology, historic monuments, rare books, history, numismatics, ethnography, performing arts, manuscripts and rare books digital library, electronic books, cultural legislation, digital maps, etc. The website hosted by the CIMEC server has 16.2 GB including:
· Web pages: 59,010 html files
· Pictures: 154,747 jpg pictures
· Documents: 1614 (1061 in pdf format and 553 in doc format)
· Databases: 22
Total number of files and databases: 213,824.
The site is partially bilingual, in Romanian and English; some pages are also in French, Hungarian and German. In 2009, it had 1.5 million visitors.
Cooperation projects:
CIMEC is a parter in several European projects:
-
ATHENA (eContent Plus, 2008 – 2011)
-
CARARE (eContent Plus, 2010 – 2012)
-
EUROPEANA 1 (eContent Plus, 2009 – 2010)
-
ARCHAEOLANDSCAPES EUROPE (Culture 2007-2013, 2010 – 2015)
and is the Romanian partner in the European networks:
· HEREIN – European Heritage Network (Council of Europe)
· FASTI ONLINE. A Database of Archaeological Excavations in Europe since 2000 (with the International Association of Classical Archaeology)
National research projects in cooperation:
· CHRONOS (2008 – 2010)
· RECONEX (2008 – 2010)
· SEISMIST (2007 – 2010)
CIMEC was a partner in the following European and regional projects:
· European Digital Library Network (EDL-Net);
· ARCHTERRA – a project of the European program “Copernicus – Esprit” (1999 – 2001);
· ARENA - a project of the European program Culture 2000 (2001 – 2004);
· CULTIVATE CEE - a project of the European Commission program “Information Societies Technologies” (2001 – 2003);
· HEREIN - a project of the European program European network for heritage policies” (2002 – 2004)
· European Landscapes: Past, Present and Future – Culture 2000 (2004 – 2007)
· EPOCH – European Network of Excellence in Open Cultural Heritage – FP6 (2004 – 2008).
CIMEC published 47 volumes and CD-ROM on cultural heritage, bibliology, museology, archaeology, numismatics, historic monuments, ethnography and history. Since 1997 it has participated in the annual book fairs.
12.02.2010
|