Activity period: May 2009 – April 2011 Project website: http://www.access-it.org/

Access IT is a two year European project funded under the Culture 2007-13 programme. Work in the project will lead to development of necessary skills and competences to digitize cultural works, aggregate them and make available in a way which is compliant with Europeana standards and infrastructure. Access IT will initiate work to resolve those problems on a sustainable basis in the three target countries (Greece, Serbia and Turkey) by transferring expertise and successful approaches in use elsewhere in Europe to create centres of competence and by creating a practical model for training and implementation.

Access IT will deliver a unique package of practical training and skills development, supported by clear guidance, to enable smaller, local cultural organizations in countries where progress in this area is currently limited, to maximize the opportunities provided by the new technologies to most effectively deliver and disseminate arts and cultural offerings to the citizens of Europe. It will take into account especially the needs of candidate countries for which eligibility for Culture 2007-13 offers an otherwise currently unavailable funding vehicle for this purpose.

PSNC, represented by its Digital Libraries Team, is a main technical/knowledge partner in this project.