The Project
Objectives
CulturaItalia proposes a guided access to the world of Italian culture. Thanks to innovative IT solutions, the portal gathers and organises millions of informational elements on the resources that make up the country's vast cultural universe, and place them at the disposal of web users at large.
Innovation
The data on the cultural resources are not produced by the Portal, but are provided directly by the entities who own and manage the resources. All the operators in the cultural sector – public administration and private companies –upload only the "metadata", that is, the descriptive information of the resources in their possession. CulturaItalia offers users the opportunity to consult and search the information on Italian cultural resources within a single site
An open system
The user, by way of the Portal, accesses a database of "metadata" which gathers and organises the information arriving from all the providers participating in CulturaItalia. He/she can discover resources of all types which make up the country's extensive cultural heritage (museums, photographs, libraries, archives, galleries, exhibits, monuments, videos, discs, etc.) to carry out searches for scientific research or simple curiosity. CulturaItalia is an "open" system in that it grows and develops in sync with the new information on the resources that enrich its database. The Portal does not, in and of itself, contain the resources on the Italian cultural heritage, but rather it offers itself as a departure point for a guided search towards other sites.
A high-level showcase
The Portal offers a service to the users, who will have at their disposal a single location from which to start their own search itineraries online in terms of Italian culture, and the operators in the field, who can take advantage of a high-quality showcase to promote their own contents. Once the resources of interest are located in CulturaItalia, the user can consult them directly at the data source, by heading to the provider's site or by contacting them via other channels, to complete their process of analysis and understanding.
A portal for everyone
The Portal represents a response to the needs of an expert public as well as the needs of the general public. CulturaItalia offers the specialised user, such as students, researchers, and those employed in the cultural sector, the opportunity to carry out targeted searches that correspond to very specific interests using a cutting-edge software. For non-specialised users, such as citizens and tourists, the Portal can pique curiosity and offer opportunities to discover or find out more about cultural resources in the territory, thanks also in large part to editorial content (thematic itineraries, articles, highlights, events, columns) published to spotlight the stores of "metadata" present in the website's database.
A project based on collaboration
The project is promoted and managed by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MiBACT) with the scientific consultation of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. CulturaItalia is aided by the support of numerous organisations and institutions in the world of Italian culture, who provide the information, the real "primary resources" of the Portal. Precisely for this ability to integrate into one system the informational elements of many different entities, CulturaItalia is a cutting-edge project in Europe and has been used as a reference for many other countries hoping to promote similar initiatives.
For further information on CulturaItalia please consult the Technical documentation on the project.
To find out how to participate in the project, please go to Join the portal.
If you wish to receive more information, contact CulturaItalia at culturaitalia.info@beniculturali.it.