In Lithuania, digital cultural policy is mainly implemented in the fields of libraries, museums, and heritage. The beginning of the digitisation process was a project of the Lithuanian Libraries Integral Information System (LIBIS), which started in 1995. The project was implemented by the Martynas Ma˛vydas National Library of Lithuania. The objectives of the project were to develop a library system that would enable automation of all library and reader service processes; create a union catalogue based on shared cataloguing; adapt integrated library information resources to customer service; extend the infrastructure created by LIBIS and develop the existing software tools. LIBIS was launched in 1998. In 2015 – 2021, the National Library implemented the LIBIS modernisation project that aimed to transfer the e-services provided by the LIBIS libraries to a centrally managed cloud infrastructure and to develop the ibiblioteka.lt portal by creating new electronic services or modernising existing ones.
In 2005, the Lithuanian Government approved the Concept for the Digitisation of Lithuanian Cultural Heritage. This policy paper defined the goals and objectives of digitisation of Lithuanian cultural heritage and established a special coordination body: the Board of Digitisation of Lithuanian Cultural Heritage.According to the Strategy, the goal of the digitisation of Lithuanian cultural heritage is to transfer unique and valuable pieces of cultural heritage into digital form. The objectives are the following: to create an integrated information system of Lithuanian cultural heritage based on uniform standards and information usage agreements, ensuring long-term preservation of digitised information and access to it; facilitate the long-term preservation and use of cultural heritage by providing a digital copy and information on it; promote the actualisation and dissemination of Lithuanian heritage in the context of world cultural diversity; and contribute to the creation of an integrated information space on European cultural heritage.
Since 2005, policy for digitisation of cultural heritage in Lithuania is coordinated by the Ministry of Culture (Memory Institutions Policy Group) together with the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation (since September 2018) and the Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania. The Council for Digitisation of Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage provides expertise and consultations on issues in digitisation policy making, implementation, monitoring and reviewing.
Digitisation of cultural heritage activities in the national memory institutions is coordinated by the national network of 15 digitisation competence centres: Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania, Lithuanian Central State Archives work at national level; M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Lithuanian Sea Museum, Šiauliai Aušros Museum, and county public libraries work at regional level; Vilnius University Library, Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, and the public institution Lithuanian National Radio and Television work on a sectoral level. Since the beginning of 2020, the system of statistics on digitisation of cultural heritage has been in place to consistently monitor and analyse the state and development of digitised and digital resources of cultural heritage and evaluate the impact of measures taken to achieve the strategic goals of the cultural heritage digitisation policy, and to initiate qualitative changes.
Digitised cultural heritage of cultural and scientific significance is available through several portals. E-paveldas is a virtual digital cultural heritage information system based on a database of digitised objects, which currently contains about 3 million pages of digitised objects (archive files, manuscripts, books, posters, paintings, graphics, photographs, and digitised images of other objects). LIMIS is the Lithuanian Integral Museum Information System. The Lithuanian Museums’ Centre for Information, Digitisation and LIMIS is a specialised department of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Its purpose is to ensure that information on the cultural heritage accumulated in Lithuanian museums is integrated into the common digital space of the Lithuanian and European cultural heritage. The portal www.limis.lt became available for users in 2012. In 2022, the LIMIS system had 1.150.600 digital items, of which 680.337 were publicly available. E-Kinas is the virtual archive of Lithuanian documentary heritage. Its aim is to create conditions for the preservation and dissemination of the film heritage accumulated in the Lithuanian Central State Archives. On the initiative of the Lithuanian Film Centre, a total of 39 copies of fictional films of significance to Lithuanian film history and 6 documentary films stored in foreign repositories and archives have already been acquired. They have been transferred for permanent storage to the Lithuanian Central State Archives. Film heritage is also available on the website sinematika.lt that offers digitalized and restored documentary films and video art works. EAIS is the Electronic Archive Information System. The system was developed in response to the constantly increasing amount of information stored in documents, registers and information systems, the cost of storing so-called “paper” documents and the need for a unified information search system of the National Document Fund (NDF). The LRT Mediateka is an audiovisual collection of Lithuanian National Radio and Television. Mediateka is open to the public since 2008. Videos and films converted into digital media are free of charge.
In 2008, to ensure targeted dissemination and promotion of the country’s cultural heritage within the European digital platform for cultural heritage, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania was entrusted with the representation of the country in the European digital library Europeana. At the end of 2020, Europeana encompassed 227.286 digital objects provided by Lithuanian institutions. In 2020–2022, due to the quarantine restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, many Lithuanian cultural and arts organisations developed digital content and created virtual tours and expositions, data bases, digital archives, mobile applications and exhibitions. This was paid in financed in part by the special programme of Lithuanian Council for Culture initiated in 2020 and aimed at the adaptation of cultural products and services to the digital environment. The budget of the programme was 10 million EUR that were allocated to 512 projects. Links to their results together with other digital initiatives are available on the website of the Ministry of Culture.
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