THE CHALLENGE OF PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES FOR THE DIGITALIZATION OF EUROPEAN CULTURAL HERITAGE

Heritage Digital Platforms use top-down approaches and require the support (and funds) of large organizations. Several Heritage Digital Platforms already exist (Europeana, Google Cultural Institute are two relevant and large examples). These platforms digitize and virtualize collections from museums, libraries and other institutions. Citizens are not involved in their creation and they do not have the objective to establish heritage communities around them. Heritage Social Platforms, on the other hand, use bottom-up approaches and are based on the support of large communities. In several fields, social platforms have proven remarkably successful at building networks c ased on the contributions of their users. However, their possibilities have not been fully exploited in the sector of cultural heritage. Heritage Social Platforms could become the place where citizens, heritage communities, and professionals will be able to contribute their voices, images, ideas, emotions, and experiences in digitizing, documenting, preserving and promoting heritage assets. In particular, the added values of Heritage Social Platforms are: o Establishing heritage communities to raise awareness on the importance of cultural heritage o Increasing and facilitating the content production by involving civil society, local communities and private organizations that are interested in cultural heritage o Bringing cultural heritage into the people's everyday life: digitization of tangible and intangible cultural information when it happens o Making cultural heritage contents more accessible and dynamic o Involving citizens and civil society in mechanisms integrated with public action for cultural heritage preservation