Dissemination update

A WP7 meeting was held in Uppsala, Sweden, on 21–22 May last and was attended by delegates from Germany, Slovenia, Lithuania, Spain, ICARUS, Ireland, Latvia, Hungary, the Netherlands, Estonia, France and Sweden. The topics discussed included Country Manager issues, the Country Manager meeting in Copenhagen, the development of the Tutorials area and a report on the results of the third technical review. One of the bigger items on the agenda was a debate on the shape of the final APEx conference. Questions ranging from who are our target groups for this conference, when will it take place, how should it be organised, what the subjects will be etc were discussed. The venue has already been decided: Budapest, Hungary, will be the host city. Another item was the upcoming restructuring of the portal user interface to make room for information from the project website. The idea is that when APEx finishes, some of the content such as that in the Tutorials area will be moved to the portal; a new menu structure is therefore desired.  

WP7 meets its Greek participants
A joint WP 2, 4 and 7 meeting was held at the National Archives of Greece in Athens on 4 June in connection with the Project Board and ESC meetings where we had the opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting with our APEx colleagues.  

Tutorials area in the development phase
The WP7 learning management work group is now actively developing the Tutorials area on the project website. Four new instruction videos have been published and two or three professional video productions are planned for the autumn. An educational package that can be used by archival educators containing tools and test content is also planned for the autumn.  

Articles
The new Articles section is now up and running on the APEx website. There are already nine articles published and more are in the pipeline. Articles recently published include an informative piece on the CENDARI project by Aleksandra Pawliczek entitled “Building up a Research Infrastructure on the First World War across Borders”.  

The article gives an introduction to the work of the project and its aim to give access to information on archival material relevant for First World War studies and medieval history. The project also facilitates the networking activities of historians, archivists and librarians which will preserve the system and create new digital research space to support and enhance specific historical methods of research.  

Former APEx WP6 Leader Kuldar Aas’s article “So, there is data – what can we do with it? - (Re)using data on Archives Portal Europe” was published in mid May. The article gives an overview of the first emerging solutions for more effective data reuse and research as well as discussing further possibilities which extend beyond the lifetime of the APEx project. If you are interested in the future of the Archives Portal Europe and where it might go, this text illustrates some ideas which are being discussed within APEx at the moment.

Publication guidelines have been developed to accompany the articles service. These guidelines are well worth using for our deliverables and other texts too and you can find them at http://www.apex-project.eu/index.php/en/partner-area/shared-documents/cat_view/30-wp7-dissemination-and-training/49-work-in-progress.

Dissemination activities in May and June
DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities): an initial meeting was arranged on 6 May in the Bundesarchiv in Berlin to get a first overview on the initiative and to find contact points for further investigation.

NAET (North-Western European Archival Educators Network): a presentation on APE/APEx was made at the NAET Potsdam meeting on 8–9 May.

CENDARI (Collaborative European Digital Archive Infrastructure): a meeting was held on 6 May in the National Archives in The Hague, the Netherlands, between APEx and the CENDARI project where collaboration between the projects was outlined.

EOGAN (the European Oil and Gas Archives Network) is a pan-European thematic archival network consisting of both public and private archives. Peder Andrén and Wim van Dongen made presentations about APEx and the Archives Portal Europe at their conference in Rotterdam on 19 June.

Representing the Working Group of the European Union Diplomatic Archives (EUDiA), Lucie Verachten has initiated cooperation with APEx to investigate how to include content from the Historical Archives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs in EU member countries in the Archive Portal Europe. First up is how to include the Blue Guide in the portal.  

Dissemination activities
Please also remember to add your dissemination activities in the Google doc at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av2WBmg-ghmXdHNkcWR1c1lzeHhqZVRKN1JfQ0UyNnc&usp=sharing.  

Archives Portal Europe Foundation update – ESC meeting in Athens

Prior to the EBNA and EAG meetings taking place in Athens, APEx held several meetings on 4–5 June on foot of an invitation by the National Archives of Greece during their presidency of the European Council. WP7 and WP4 met first with Greek colleagues to prepare the integration of Greek content into the portal. The same day as well as the morning of the following day, the Project Board met and discussed among other topics, the planning for the sustainability of the portal after the termination of the project. In the late afternoon of 4 June, the ESC as the highest decision-making body of APEx met.

Based on decisions taken at the last ESC meeting in Vilnius in October 2013 about the creation of a self-sustained body responsible for the maintenance of the portal, the main topic on the agenda was the proposal for the creation of the APE Foundation and its business plan. The discussions were based on a draft business plan and a memorandum explaining the advantages of creating a foundation according to Dutch law, which were presented during the meeting by its authors, a team of Dutch consultants of the DEN Foundation.

Based on these discussions, the ESC took the following decisions:

• The structure of the Foundation will be simple and effective. It will have an assembly of associates deciding on the principles, aims and financial budgets. This assembly will elect an executive board for strategic operations which will be supported by an office with hired personnel.
• The associates will pay a fee which will be decided upon together with the financial plan during the next meeting in Turin. Regarding the annual fee, a sum of €10,000 as a minimum was proposed but not yet decided. The decision will include a mechanism to support those content providers who want to take on the responsibility of associates but cannot afford the full fee.
• Content providers will not have to pay for integrating their data. It is sufficient for them to sign the CPA.
• The Foundation will need to be able to apply for funding in the new CEF-Programme of the EU which supports cross-border digital services and accords Europeana a high priority for funding. Europeana has announced its readiness to integrate APEx into its own application planning. The Foundation might then be the legal body existing after the termination of the project and may need to apply for funding. For this purpose, the Foundation will be created this summer on the basis of the accepted governance model.

The chair Martin Berendse informed the meeting that he encountered a great commitment when approaching partners about the possibility of paying fees to join the Foundation. Therefore his own government has offered to match a contribution by other partners of up to €50,000 in the first year and €100,000 in the second year as bridging money. The details of the formation of the Foundation are the responsibility of the WP8 Strategic Group with its nine members and Karel Velle as chair. The final decisions will be taken during the next meeting in Turin in November.