Michael Culture actively supports the Minerva network. Minerva is a thematic network of European professionals working on digital cultural heritage, bringing together stakeholders and experts from all over Europe.

Minerva network gathers more than 100 cultural institutions - museums, libraries, archives, art centers, ministries -  in over 20 countries throughout Europe and beyond.

The main goals of Minerva Network are to develop the network of professionals working in the field of cultural heritage digitization, to increase their awareness and competences on digitization of cultural heritage and innovative services, and to communicate and to disseminate best practices among them.

To achieve these goals, the activities of Minerva networkrely on the organisation of conferences, workshops and training sessions, networking, publication of guidelines and handbooks on digitization, dissemination of cultural heritage and communication towards professionals.

The network was built through the Minerva Projects, aunched in 2002, following the Lund Action Plan, then extended, in the framework of the European Commission initiative “i2010 – A European Information Society for growth and employment”.

Objectives

The general objectives of the network are:

• Contribute to structure the field of professionals working on digitization of cultural heritage
• Improve accessibility to and visibility of European digital cultural resources;
• Support the development of the European Digital Library for accessing cultural resources;
• Improve the quality of content and services
• Promote the use of digital cultural resources by business and citizens;
• Facilitate exploitation of cultural digital resources, providing clear rules for their use and re-use, respecting and protecting the creators’ rights