PATCH 2013: Personal Access to Cultural Heritage

The number of digital collections in the cultural heritage domain is increasing year on year. Improved quality of access to cultural collections, especially those collections which are not exhibited physically is a key objective of the digitisation process. Despite some successes in this area, many digitised collections struggle to attract users or to maintain their interest over a prolonged period. One of the key reasons for this is that users of these archives vary in expertise (from professional researchers to school children) and have different tasks and goals that they are trying to accomplish. This paper describes CULTURA, an FP7 funded project that is addressing this specific issue through its four-phase personalisation approach and accompanying suite of services. By employing such personalisation techniques, CULTURA is helping the exploration of, linking to, and collaboration around cultural heritage collections.