Royal Library of Belgium

The ENCATC Cultural Happy Hour of June will be the occasion for our community to discover the Royal Library of Belgium, the national scientific library. It collects all Belgian publications and preserves, manages and studies an extensive cultural and historical heritage. It provides the public with access to information, facilitates research, and offers a broad cultural experience. The Royal Library of Belgium preserves a heritage collection of 8 million documents. Making it accessible to the public is hard work, that is why there are specialists in restoration and digitisation on call. In addition, in 2020, the KBR museum opened its doors. It displays a national treasure: the Library of the Dukes of Burgundy and its fabulous collection of 15th-century manuscripts. With the new museum, KBR establishes itself as a major cultural hub in Brussels.

This monthly ENCATC gathering is also the occasion to host the Talk, LOST IN TRANSITION? From invisible interactions to digital commons: the collective creation of "new cathedrals of data and knowledge". The unique example of the digital restoration of Notre Dame de Paris, as a symbolic new “cathedral of data and knowledge” will be guiding the conversation and help the understanding of how humans and digital objects, with their representations, can influence each other to open up new perspectives for the future cultural heritage world. We are proud to see this being delivered by Prof. Livio De Luca, Research Director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and expert in the field of geometric modeling and semantic enrichment of digital representations of heritage objects. Animated by Mrs. Mariachiara Esposito, the discussion will focus on digital transition processes involving cultural heritage sectors and how new forms of interdisciplinary and scientific collaborations emerge in the framework of the European evolving scenarios. Themes will range from the early stage of digital transformations of cultural heritage professions to the more recent developments linked to Artificial intelligence and the need for cloud services and collaborative platforms where heritage professionals, managers and users can interact and enhance the benefit of collective intelligence through new forms of knowledge transfer to society.

Organised by ENCATC in partnership with the Creative Europe Desks Vlaanderen in the framework of the very successful Cultural Happy Hours initiative, this gathering will be an opportunity to delve into the topics of digitalisation of culture and cultural heritage, while discovering a key historical cultural institution of Brussels with colleagues from Belgium and beyond.