NATIONAL AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IN ZAGREB

NSK holds D-fest 2023, Twelfth Festival of Croatian Digitisation Projects

On 4 and 5 May 2023, the National and University Library in Zagreb (NSK) organised and hosted D-fest 2023, the Twelfth Festival of Croatian Digitisation Projects, this year’s edition of the Library’s annual conference focusing on the digitisation of cultural and scientific heritage, systems for the management of digital resources, products and services and the promotion of digitisation projects.

D-fest again brought together professionals whose presentations addressed current topics in the field of the digitisation of cultural heritage and demonstrated the results of various digitisation projects focusing on the resources held by cultural and scientific institutions. Providing insight into theoretical and practical issues regarding the management of digital cultural and scientific heritage as well as opportunities for exchanging knowledge and experiences of the growing community of digitisation professionals are the very focus of the objectives which the National and University Library in Zagreb set by launching the Festival in 2011.

The Festival’s participants were greeted by the Envoy of the Croatian Minister of Culture and Media and Director of the Ministry’s Directorate for Archives, Libraries and Museums Anuška Deranja Crnokić and the Library’s Director General Dr Ivanka Stričević, after which the Festival’s programme opened by a panel discussion on the latest developments in e-Culture, currently the largest national digitisation project in Croatia aimed at the development of infrastructure for the management of digital heritage and the strengthening of heritage institutions with regard to the digitisation of their resources, permanent storage of digital resources, digital unification and the development of digital heritage-related services. After the panellists, the representatives of the National and University Library in Zagreb and other three institutions acting as the partners in the project, presented the project’s latest results, ensued a session spotlighting the latest developments in the management of digital heritage, new digital heritage-related services, as well as novelties in the digitisation standards.

The remaining part of the programme of the Festival’s first day included two workshops also thematising the e-Culture project – one focused on the permanent storage of digital heritage and its inclusion in Europeana, Europe’s digital library, museum, gallery and archive, while the other was devoted to the creation of online exhibitions within the e-Culture system. The 2023 D-fest’s day one closed with an overview of projects focusing on the digitisation of musical heritage and photographic material.

The programme of the Festival’s second day featured presentations on two currently highly dominant topics – artificial intelligence and its use in culture, science and the management of digital heritage, and citizen science, in the context of the participation of the wider public in digitisation projects and finding new ways of bringing culture and science closer to a wider audience. Apart from the poster session, the Festival’s day two also presented the results of various digitisation projects, new online exhibitions and other innovative content suited for the promotion of heritage in the digital environment.

Having come back this year as a physical event after two online editions, D-fest again provided insight into the different aspects of digitisation, as well as into the various aspects of the management and use of digital heritage, and made a valuable contribution to the current debates and creative exchanges regarding the latest developments in the field of digitisation, particularly in terms of the education and strengthening of all the partakers in the digitisation of cultural heritage.

Learn more about the Festival’s topics in D-fest 2023 Book of Abstracts and in the presentations available as part of D-fest 2023 Programme.