Digitisation of cultural heritage discussed at AIMday
3 November 2016
The research and cultural heritage sectors meet to give each other fresh insights as Uppsala University hosts an AIMday for cultural heritage.
Cultural heritage has become a field of great importance for the development of modern society. Modern technology creates new opportunities for communicating and presenting cultural heritage, as well as making it accessible. The potential and challenges of digitisation are the starting point for the topics that organisations from the cultural heritage sector will discuss with Uppsala University researchers at the AIMday for cultural heritage.
On 10 November, various organisations in the cultural heritage sector and researchers from different scholarly fields and subjects gather at Uppsala University’s campus Blåsenhus to discuss how cultural heritage can bee made accessible, communicated and presented to different target audiences and areas. The topics to be discussed have been submitted beforehand by the organisations, based on their current challenges.
One of the organisations taking part at the AIMday for cultural heritage is the LSH – the Swedish government agency for the Royal Armoury, Skokloster Castle and the Hallwyl Museum. The museums’ collections consist of some 90,000 items, with everything from unique 17th-century clothing, royal jewellery and antique weapons to historical kitchen utensils and scientific instruments. One of the questions that the LSH wants to discuss is about different learning styles in a digital context and how we take in visual and digital information. The topic is highly relevant since a new permanent exhibition is being set up at the Royal Armoury to replace the current one which has been on display since 1978.
“The new permanent exhibition will be a thematic and chronological exhibition focusing on how the monarchy legitimised its power. It’s an extensive project where our area of responsibility is to show our digital collections. Our hope is that the AIMday meeting can give us knowledge and ideas of how we can offer something both to those without any prior knowledge about Swedish history, and to those who wish to deepen their knowledge,” says Karin Nilsson, Head of the Digital Museum unit at LSH.
Other topics to be discussed during the day revolve around how the national cultural heritage bodies can become better at giving the public a way to contribute to building knowledge and research on Swedish materials such as items, photographs, documents, etc. Internationally there are several examples of such initiatives which have had positive outcomes. How digital methods can support cross-border research, storytelling and life-long learning are other topics to be discussed during the day.
“Cultural heritage is an exciting and cross-border field and there is a lot of interest from both researchers and organisations to meet on this theme. Uppsala University conducts a lot of research which is relevant in this context, both in humanities and social sciences, and IT related fields. We strive to connect this research with the needs of society in a way that strengthens quality in research and education,” says Jin Moen, Project Manager for the AIMday on cultural heritage at Uppsala University Innovation.
About AIMday
AIMday is a method pioneered by Uppsala University to further collaboration between academic researchers and companies and organisations. Questions and challenges from companies and organisations are matched with researchers, and every issue is discussed in a workshop format – one hour per question. The goal is to explore, in a cross-disciplinary way, several different possible paths to potential solutions for an issue and lay the foundation for future collaboration. The AIMday concept was launched in 2008 and has since then been used in many different fields, such as cancer, diabetes, ageing and materials. The concept is also used by other Swedish higher education institutions and has also been introduced abroad, including at the University of Edinburgh and at the University of Oxford.
Sara Gredemark
News
-
From living heritage to zombie churches
22 mars 2023
Churches are preserved by an antiquarian system that risks killing them instead of keeping them alive. The Swedish State and the Church of Sweden therefore need to define new joint visions and goals to enable the ecclesiastical cultural heritage t...
-
Democracy researchers to participate in literature festival
22 mars 2023
War, crime and literature as a path to reconciliation is the theme of the Uppsala International Literature Festival on March 23–25. One of the organisers is the Democracy and Higher Education research programme at Uppsala University. Christina Kul...
-
ERC grant for research into Swedish slavery
03 februari 2023
Fredrik Thomasson, researcher at the Department of History at Uppsala University, has received the ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). This grant relates to a project on Swedish colonial history on the island of Saint ...
-
The names given to the clouds, an important part of the university's history
04 januari 2023
The book “Molnspanare– en meteorologisk historia” (Cloud spotters – a meteorological history) tells of the emergence of meteorology as a scientific subject. Among other things, you can read about how the Latin names and classification of the cloud...
-
The history of Easter Island can teach us about sustainability
08 december 2022
Tourism has exploded on Easter Island over the last twenty years – something that has led to both financial gain and major encroachments on the island's environment. Researchers from Uppsala are now studying how history can teach us to build a mo...
-
Nobel Prize-winning literature often published by small publishing houses
05 december 2022
During the Christmas trade period, books written by the latest Nobel Prize laureate tend to sell at least as well as the more traditional bestsellers. It is very important for publishers to have Nobel Prize winners on their lists, according to res...
-
Conference: 30 years of EU citizenship
21 november 2022
This year marks 30 years since European Union citizenship came into being. It will be highlighted at an international, interdisciplinary conference in Uppsala on 22–23 November. Both researchers and all those interested are welcome to attend.
-
New honorary doctors in the Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences
03 november 2022
The faculties at Uppsala University have decided on the award of honorary doctorates for 2022. Among the new honorary doctors at faculties in the Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences are researchers in economic geography, family l...
-
The vulnerability of surrogate mothers in a global market
17 oktober 2022
A new dissertation on surrogacy highlights Thai women's experiences of having acted as surrogate mothers. The dissertation shows the women's vulnerability in a global surrogacy industry, but also provides a more nuanced picture of what makes women...
-
Historical discoveries as Linnaeus Garden is excavated
07 oktober 2022
Unique pots, eighteenth-century porcelain and the bones of countless fish and birds: archaeologists who have been excavating part of the Linnaeus Garden have come across a wealth of exciting objects that can tell us more about the people and anima...
-
Popular 18th-century medicine in a new form
05 september 2022
Hello to Nils-Otto Ahnfelt, PhD pharmacist and visiting researcher at the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences. Together with the historian of science Hjalmar Fors, you have developed a reconstruction of the 300-year-old medicine Hjärnes Testa...
-
Torgny Segerstedt Medal and Geijer Prize winners announced
05 september 2022
This year’s Torgny Segerstedt Medal has been awarded to Mikael Stenmark, professor in philosophy of religion at the Department of Theology. The Geijer Prize goes to Viktor Persarvet and Astrid Wendel-Hansen.
-
Digging from the present down to antiquity
30 augusti 2022
Welcome to the Viking Age! The archaeology students, with their trowels and their scrapers, have dug past the medieval layers and made their way down to the 11th century, approximately 30 centimetres below today's ground level. During the seminar ...
-
The sheep – Gotland’s symbol of sustainability
14 juni 2022
Sheep are the strongest symbol of sustainability on Gotland, according to Gurbet Peker. Not only do real ones graze all over the island, you can even find sheep sculpted in concrete in Visby. Peker researches the day-to-day lives of lamb farmers i...
-
Can democracy solve the climate crisis?
13 juni 2022
Hello Linda Wedlin, organisor and moderator of a panel discussion during Almedalen Week with the theme ‘What knowledge and what kind of democracy is needed for a successful climate transition?’ What are you going to be discussing?
-
Mapping people of the past by means of their bones
09 maj 2022
What is the best way to find out about a human being or animal that has been dead for perhaps several centuries? “Study the bones” is what Sabine Sten, professor of osteoarchaeology, would say. They can reveal an individual's age, body length, DNA...
-
Transforming space and society in Kiruna
24 mars 2022
State and corporate ideas about nature, people and the future played a decisive role in the development of Kiruna as a mining town over a century ago. Since 2004, when 6,000 Kiruna residents were informed that they would have to move because of gr...
-
New light cast on female pelvises in University collections
04 mars 2022
Many of the University’s museums currently hold preserved specimens of embryos, fetuses, newborns, and women’s pelvises. During the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, these formed part of embryological and obstetric collections at...
-
350 years old remains in a Stone Age site in Portugal
25 februari 2022
An African man who lived just 350 years ago was buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. This was very surprising because Amoreira and other midden sites in the Muge region are well known by archaeologists for the cemeteries o...
-
ERC Starting Grant for historian of ideas
31 januari 2022
The Starting Grants awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) in its 2021 call have been announced. The awardees include an Uppsala researcher: Ylva Söderfeldt, Senior Lecturer at the University’s Department of History of Science and Ideas.