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MLA - sponsored initiative going under the name of MICHAEL (that's the 'Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe) aims to create worldwide access to a vast European cultural heritage.

A new multilingual online catalogue - MICHAEL - aims to provide quick and simple access to the digital collections of museums, libraries and archives from European countries.

In future, students, staff and researchers will be able to discover information about European digital collections that might previously have been difficult to find. The services will also support cultural tourism, the creative industries and other interests.

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is the UK partner in this ground-breaking British, French and Italian led initiative. In the UK, MLA is working to build a UK-wide inventory of the collections, websites and other resources created through digitisation projects by museums, libraries, archives and other cultural institutions.

Inventory

Kate Fernie, ICT Adviser: EU Projects at MLA commented: "MICHAEL will open up worldwide access to our shared European cultural heritage creating the first multilingual inventory of collections in museums, libraries and archives across Europe. The aim of today's conference is to mark the launch of the MICHAEL project in the UK and to promote MICHAEL to the profession and beyond to encourage active engagement and support in developing and maintaining the inventory of UK digital collections."

Work on Michael began in 2004 to create an open source database for recording digital collections, that can be accessed through websites in many different languages. Work is continuing on cataloguing the rich digital collections in the UK, and a European portal of digital collections from Italy, France and the UK will be launched in 2006. As the project moves forwards, new partners will join the project from Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands and Poland By 2007, the MICHAEL portal will be available in at least 12 European languages and give access to digital collections across Europe.

The project is supported by the European Commission with funding through its eTen programme - which is dedicated to the deployment of new services in Europe.

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council is the UK's national development agency working for and on behalf of museums, libraries and archives, advising the government on policy and priorities for the sector. MLA's roles are to provide strategic leadership, to act as a powerful advocate, to develop capacity and to promote innovation and change.

Further information about the MICHAEL project is available from: www.michael-culture.org

More information available in Arts & Culture, Home Computing