Developing a national strategy for multimedia cultural heritage

The importance of information acquisition and dissemination for cultural organizations is clearly reflected in some recent important public statements, including the June 1991 document adopted by 34 governments issued by the Conference of Security and Go-operation in Europe (CSCE). Greater emphasis was given to this subject at the Last meeting of the G7 nations in Brussels, where it was specified that "culture is a key dimension of the Information Society." In most European countries, long-term efforts have been undertaken to preserve, describe and index cultural heritage. More recently, the digitalization of important parts of this heritage has begun, and public sector cultural organizations put great emphasis on knowledge dissemination to different types of user communities. Increased importance has been directed to satisfying the needs of different user "publics," leading to market segmentation involving different user subgroups, each characterized by an homogenous set of needs. This approach results in the development of different types of multimedia services, enabling cultural organizations to implement strategies of content dissemination which takes into account the alternative ways information can be structured and communicated to different publics. Strategies for multimedia cultural heritage infrastructures and products being formulated in France and the policies that are being adopted will be examined.