Heritage 4.0 Project: From Access to the Semantic Archive through experiential itineraries
The sixth generation of Heritage! 

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I dreamed that I can get by until I finish that little project I started about three decades ago. So, in a flash of "naive genius", I decided to expand the project so that it could last at least another forty years. And, if bureaucracy works in my favor, maybe I'll even get those "twenty-year extensions", typical of public contracts (even if it is worth clarifying that the project, in addition to being non-profit, does not involve the use of public funds) . Irony aside, I know I probably won't see the end of the project but who cares, the real goal is not to "live while dying" but "die while living". 

Here, then, is the new version of my project which is now called "Heritage 4.0"

Phases of the Heritage 4.0 Project (summary)

  1. Heritage Archive 3.0: Launch of the first Multi-Archive of Cultural Heritage "Heritage", made up of a hundred thematic and territorial archives integrated with each other containing the assets of the Material and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Sicily and Malta. This phase, which began in 1995, has currently led to the cataloging and georeferencing of over 13.000 tangible and intangible cultural assets.
  2. Heritage 3.0 Plus Archive: This activity, which began in 2020, is currently under development and implementation
    • Audio guides: Integration of audio guides
    • Video media: Integrations of videos from social media (Youtube)
    • QR-Code: Insertion of QR-Code in the archive cards 
    • Downloadable mini-guide creations created with QR-Code.
    • “QR Archive for Accessible Navigation”: Creation of QR-Codes for the blind. These codes, once scanned, lead to web pages with specific audio content 
  3. Ancient Paths and Historical Itineraries of Sicily: Integration of the Archive with the project “Ancient paths and historical itineraries of Sicily”. Phase began in 2020 and is constantly evolving.
  4. Experiential itineraries: Development of Tourist Itineraries based on a holistic approach to the valorisation of the territory, following the experiential and Heritage Interpretation principles. The first itineraries will be published in 2024.
  5. Heritage 4.0: Creation of a Semantic Archive, which integrates the existing archive with semantic Artificial Intelligence. This will allow an improvement in the search for information and in the automatic generation of holistic itineraries. It will be possible to query the Heritage Archive using text and voice, overcoming the limits of current metadata (categories and hashtags). The testing phase is underway, with the expectation of publishing the first prototype by the end of 2024.

Ignazio Caloggero, dreamer, despite everything. 

A few more words on the first point.

Heritage Archive 3.0

The technical characteristics of the current Heritage 3.0 archive:

The "Heritage" Multi-Archive of Cultural Heritage consists of a hundred integrated thematic and territorial archives containing the assets of the Material and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Sicily and Malta and has the following characteristics which are typical of web 3.0:  Multimedia, geoweb, Social Web, Multi thematic and Multi territorial (Multiarchive), Advanced Search, WikiWeb and  Multilingual.  

The Heritage Archive, the result of over thirty years of data collection, is a non-profit public archive and its nature is exclusively informative and scientific. At the moment (October 2023), with its over 13.000 cataloged assets, it is probably the largest new generation cultural multimedia archive created. 

  • Multimedia: Cards containing text, images, audio and video and therefore with the ability to also insert audio guides, video guides and further multimedia documents for further information
  • GeoWeb: Information on geo-referenced interactive Google maps, localization and identification of the path to reach the property (where relevant). Some assets are also visible on Street view, therefore with a 360 ° view of the context in which the asset is located.
  • Social Web: Interactive cards with the possibility of inserting reviews, experiences. voting, comments and sharing on various social networks.
  • Multi thematic and Multi territorial (Multiarchive): The archive allows the visualization on web pages of single thematic and / or territorial archives (integrated with each other). By assigning new categories and tags it is possible to create an unlimited number of thematic and territorial sub-archives.
  • Advanced Search: by keywords, phrases (full text), cities, places, locations or geographical areas chosen by the user, physical location of the user, categories, subcategories and tags
  • WikiWeb: possibility of autonomous management of the cards by the authors or collaborators themselves
  • Multilingual: the innovative neural machine translation system is used.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of the main archives that can be viewed independently:

Material Heritage Area

Intangible Heritage Area

Territorial Archives 

In all provincial territorial archives there is a filter that allows you to view the assets of individual municipalities and individual categories of assets 

To visit the 3.0 archive: Multi Archive Heritage 3.0  

 

Note on the generations of the Heritage Archive

  • First Generation (1995): “Access” database offline only
  • Second Generation (2004): “Web Access” database searchable online, text only
  • Third Generation (2010): “Visual” database in Mysql, searchable online - text and images
  • Fourth Generation (2014): Dedicated database searchable Online integrated with Google Maps and web 3.0 technology (Georeferenced, Responsive, Wiki, Advanced search)
  • Fifth Generation (2020): Online "GeoSocial" Archive (Georeferenced, Social, Multi-thematic, Territorial, Advanced Search)
  • Sixth Generation (2024?): Semantic Archive with information search and automatic generation of holistic itineraries through the use of semantic Artificial Intelligence.  
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