Educational and Cultural Content

A call for projects was launched under the Knowledge Society Operational Programme to develop content aimed at extending broadband use between February and April 2006.

This led to several projects providing digital content from libraries, archives, museums and other public-interest collections in both central government bodies and local administrations. To name but a few examples:

• The Portuguese Open Access Scientific Repository (RCAAP) (site in Portuguese), a Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC)initiative that was instituted at the FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computation (site in Portuguese), came on-stream on 16th December 2008. Any institution belonging to the scientific and higher education system can use it free of charge to host their own repository and can customise their own corporate identity and may join a coherent metadata of the open-access repositories in Portugal (see Open access repositories). There were more than 13,550 entries in the RCAAP’s national metadata and search system by late 2008.With the RCAAP’s launch, the following open access repositories became available on it for the first time:
  • Universidade de Coimbra Hospitals' Repository. Slightly over 300 entries by the end of 2008;
  • Universidade Aberta (Open University) Open Repository (site in Portuguese). Slightly over 200 entries by the end of 2008;
  • Universidade dos Açores Repository (site in Portuguese). Slightly over 70 entries by the end of 2008;
  • UTL Repository (site in Portuguese). Slightly over 40 entries by the end of 2008;
  • Universidade da Madeira Repository (site in Portuguese). 5 entries by the end of 2008;
    
  The following pre-existing open access repositories were also incorporated in the RCAAP’s metadata and search system:
  
  • RepositóriUM, set up in 2003 by the Universidade do Minho. This repository had more than 6,000 entries by the end of 2007, and roughly 7,400 entries by the end of 2008;
  • ISCTE Repository (site in Portuguese), set up in 2006 by ISCTE – Higher Institute of Labour and Enterprise Sciences. This repository had more than 300 entries by the end of 2007, and 700 entries by the end of 2008;
  • Universidade do Porto Repository (site in Portuguese), set up in 2007 by the Universidade do Porto. This repository had more than 800 entries by the end of 2007, and 1,050 entries by the end of 2008;
  • Estudo Geral - Universidade de Coimbra (site in Portuguese), set up in 2008 by the Universidade de Coimbra (site in Portuguese). This repository had roughly 3,210 entries by the end of 2008;
  • FCT-UNL Institutional Repository (site in Portuguese), set up in 2008 by the Universidade Nova de Lisboa's Faculty of Science and Technology (site in Portuguese). This repository had just over 380 entries by the end of 2008;
  • Universidade de Lisboa Institutional Repository (site in Portuguese), set up in 2008 by the Universidade de Lisboa. This repository had roughly 190 entries by the end of 2008.
• The National Digital Library (site in Portuguese), with the National Library (site in Portuguese), was set up with support from the Operational Information Society/Knowledge Society Programme, through which 9,563 documents were available online at the end of 2007 and 14,349 documents at the end of 2008;
• The IHRU – Urban Habitation and Regeneration Institute (site in Portuguese), continuing the work started by the former Directorate General for National Buildings and Monuments with the support of the Operational Information Society/Knowledge Society Programme, is maintaining the Architectural Heritage information system on the Internet. At the end of 2008 this included 24,411 inventory items and 377,084 documental sources;
• At the end of 2008, the Archives Directorate-General (site in Portuguese) provided access to 746,438 documents in various databases. TT-Online (site in Portuguese), DIGITARQ (site in Portuguese), ADP (site in Portuguese);
• The INE – National Statistics Institute has made the Official Statistics Digital Library available online, with support from the Operational Information Society/Knowledge Society Programme, namely through access via the Digital Archive (site in Portuguese) to full range of images from the INE’s statistical information publications from 1864 to 2000 (more than 1.5 million pages), and more recent ones via Publications (site in Portuguese), which, at the end of 2008 totalled more than 30,475 documents;
• The Universidade de Évora set up the open access Universidade de Évora's Scientific Repository (site in Portuguese) in 2007. This repository had slightly over 200 entries by the end of 2007, and 327 entries by the end of 2008;
• The Alentejo Foundation – Motherland is a private, not-for-profit body that began making the Digital Alentejo Library (site in Portuguese) available online on 12.12.2007, with support from the Operational Information Society/Knowledge Society Programme, initially with 440 documents and 705 documents by the end of 2008;
• The Portuguese Archaelogy Institute (IPA) (site in Portuguese) has made the Endovélico database for archaeological sites and work available. At the end of 2007, this database included more than 27,570 archaeological site entries, 26,000 archaeological works and 6,500 archaeological projects, and a total of 62,414 entries by the end of 2008;
• The Museums and Conservation Institute (IMC) (site in Portuguese) has made the MATRIZNET and MATRIZPIX (site in Portuguese) databases available, with support from Operational Information Society/Knowledge Society Programme. These provided a total of 65.373 entries by the end of 2008;
• The Portuguese Architectural Heritage Institute (site in Portuguese), with support from the Operational Information Society/Knowledge Society Programme, has developed an inventory and digitalisation information system for historical- cultural heritage (site in Portuguese), which included 6,186 entries at the end of 2008;
• The Theatre Studies Centre (site in Portuguese), a research unit of the Universidade de Lisboa's Faculdade de Letras (site in English) funded by the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT), has made the CETbase (site in English) information system on theatre in Portugal available. At the end of 2007, it covered more than 12,800 shows, 9,000 texts and 34,300 people, rising to records of 17,391 shows, 38,218 people, 12,183 texts, 9,280 institutions, 2620 spaces, 1,349 events and 3,871 cases of funding;
• The National Civil Engineering Laboratory (site in Portuguese), the state laboratory under the joint responsibility of the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communication and the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, maintains information on the Internet on the roughly 170 dams (site in Portuguese) built in Portugal.

Also in the scope of the Digital Cities and Regions projects, significant developments have been made in local cultural content, which, taken as a whole, has become sizeable.