CULTURAL HERITAGE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
Text topic: Studies
Text author: Гордана В. Стојић
The aims of digitization are preservation, accessibility and popularization of cultural heritage. It raises consciousness about the importance of cultural heritage and preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity. It provides small communities with powerful, non-expensive tools to preserve and present their cultural heritage. Wider audiences can have easy access to the world cultural heritage as well as to the local ones. From the viewpoint of the audience, the most important traits of cultural heritage presentations are interactivity and personalization. Sociological approach to the digitization of cultural heritage is focused on two problems: content and access. Which contents will be digitized and who will have access to them depends not only on the cultural criteria (value of cultural contents and cultural needs) but also on technological, economic and social factors: development and spread of ICTs, digital divide (on the global level and within a particular society), IT companies’ business policies, activities of cultural institutions and cultural policy. Several issues can be pointed out relating to digitization of cultural heritage: intellectual property issue, obsoleteness of the data carriers, and long-term economic support for repositories. When speaking about user experience, influence of different contexts on the reception and interpretation of cultural heritage should be discussed. Digital-born cultural contents as well as ‘unintentional archive’ made by internet users pose questions relating to selection, temporary nature of internet platforms, public versus private and commercial versus cultural issues. Digitization of cultural heritage is not a replacement for “live” cultural participation; it is a new tool for the realization of cultural policy aims, as well as a new field of experience and creation of cultural contents.
