The conference, held on October 14-15, 2024, was organised under the auspices of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union by three prestigious Hungarian cultural institutions, namely the Hungarian National Museum Public Collections Centre – Hungarian National Museum (HNMPCC HNM), the Hungarian National Museum Public Collections Centre – National Széchényi Library (HNMPCC NSZL) and the National Archives of Hungary (NAH).
The conference dealt with the multifaceted digital challenges of public collections, providing a platform for international collaboration by knowledge exchange and dialogue among museum specialists, librarians, archivists, policymakers, and other stakeholders. It addressed current topics such as digitisation, technological development, the challenges of artificial intelligence in the cultural field, as well as related policies and strategies.
Esteemed speakers from leading European and Hungarian institutions and organisations included representatives from IFLA, EBLIDA, AVICOM, E-RIHS, the OMC Working Group, as well as experts from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC).
The program included presentations about the SHIFT project by Benedek Varga, director of Semmelweis Museum of the History of Medicine and George Margetis, researcher at Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, Institute of Computer Science, and Foundation for Research of Technology. It was followed by a roundtable discussion with the participation of key members of the SHIFT project and related projects: MEMENTOES, PERCEIVE, PREMIERE, MuseIT and MEMORISE. The volume – published by the HNMPCC HNM – gives an overview about the results of the lectures and roundtable discussion of the conference and can be downloaded at this link.
