MOBILISE WG5 and WG2 are organizing a joint meeting in Italy, in the city of Padova, on September 12th-13th. The two days meeting is planned for facilitating the transfer of technology and knowledge between the MOBILISE/DiSSCo community and the institutes starting a major digitization effort in Italy in 2023-2025, funded by the Italian Government in the framework of the National Resilience and Resistence Plan (PNRR). The final aim of this workshop is to increase the efficiency of digitisation and data mobilisation in a national project across small, medium, and large collections.

Italy is an interesting test bed for digitization efforts, since it has ca. 450 different institutions which host natural history collections. These differ in size (from a few large Natural History Museums, each hosting 10 million specimens or more, to very small ones, with a few thousand specimens), administration (University, Regional, Municipal, Ecclesiastic, or other private institutions), amount of personnel, accessibility, etc. Thus, several different approaches for the digitization of the Italian Natural History Cultural Heritage are necessary.

This workshop will bring together the Italian coordinators with other specialists on Digitisation of Collections and Biodiversity Data form across Europe, in a total of 45 participants. The main outputs of the workshop will be:

  • an effective exchange of technology and knowledge between the MOBILISE/DiSSCo community and the Italian institutes;
  • an analysis of the complex and fragmented Italian situation, addressing the issues which could be more impactful on the digitization of Natural History Collections;
  • the establishment of a strengthened cooperation between Italian Natural History Museums, the DiSSCo community, and the GBIF in order to properly publish biodiversity data in open and FAIR format.
Day 1
9:30Opening of the workshop
9:45Plenary session

·        Video presentation of DISSCo and related projects

·        The DiSSCo Digitisation Guidelines website (Lisa French)

·        Natural History Collections and the GBIF (Kyle Copas, GBIF)

·        Not only specimens: linked data objects in digital collections platforms (Donat Agosti, Plazi)

·        Natural History Collections: the Italian landscape (Fausto Barbagli, National Association of Natural History Museums)

·        The Digitization Infrastructure of the National Biodiversity Future Center (Stefano Martellos, University of Trieste)

·        Q&A

11:00Coffee Break
11:30Plenary session

·        The UK national strategy for digitization (Laurence Livermore, NHM)

·        The Danish Network of Natural Science Collections (Pip Brewer)

·        The experience of RECOLNAT (Francois Dusolier, MNHN)

·        Digitization in Bulgaria (Boyko Georgiev)

·        The digitization at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin (Julia Szalewicz, MFN)

·        Digitization at the Finnish Museum of Natural History (Anne Koivunen)

·        The Wien Herbarium (Heimo Reiner)

·        The virtual collections of the Meise Botanical Garden (Mathias Dillen)

·        Digitization in Norway (Rukaya Sarah Johaadien)

·        Q&A

13:30Lunch break
14:45Parallel sessions
  • Protocols and standards for digital imaging
  • Specimen data and GBIF
16:15Coffee break
16:45Parallel sessions
  • Protocols and standards for digital imaging
  • Specimen data and GBIF
18:00End of day 1
 
20:00Social Dinner in the centre of Padua
 
Day 2
9:30Parallel sessions
  • Digitization workflows
  • Digital platforms
11:00Coffee break
11:30Parallel sessions
  • Digitization workflows
  • Digital platforms
13:00Lunch
14:00Plenary sessions
  • Report from each working group
  • Wrapping up
15:00Closing ceremony and farewell
WG2-WG5 Joint Workshop Digitization in Italy September 12-13, Padua, Italy