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Taking the Next Step in Digital Documentation of Historic Cities

How HERMeS Evolved in an Open Data Digital Library of Historic Buildings

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Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection (EuroMed 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10058))

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Abstract

When a long-term research finishes, there is always a question about implementation and further development. In the case of HER.M.e.S, the Digital Heritage Management System of the Historic City of Hermoupolis, in a Greek Aegean Island, Syros, it was also a question about raising awareness. The research proved that 2.4 historic buildings collapse every year, as a result of abandonment. This phenomenon was intensified by the severe economic crisis in Greece. The research proposed an optimal conservation plan for the city, after carefully evaluating variables through a multi-criteria model using GIS and an innovating point system. But in order to apply this plan, we need to be able to update the data, as buildings are constantly changing through time. Updating a database with more than 1000 historic buildings, with no funds, is a huge challenge. Soon, we decided that the only way to go is to use a crowdsourcing method. Developing a digital heritage collection portal, using free open source software and serving crucial data for every building, was the answer to our problem. We asked citizens to check the data base, report mistakes, updates, stories, photographs and use the portal to learn about their city. This effort led us to a big digitization project, with up to 1290 historic buildings, 14.400 geo-tagged photos and more than 15.000 fields of information. The project HERMeS, as a conservation plan and a heritage digitization project won the 2015 European Union Europa Nostra Award in Category Research & Digitalisation.

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Acknowledgments

4DCH (http://www.4d-ch-world.eu/) project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework program for research, technological development and demonstration under GA no 324523.

EU Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards (http://www.europanostra.org) was launched in 2002 by the European Commission and has been organised by Europa Nostra since then. The Prize celebrates and promotes best practices related to heritage conservation, management, research, education and communication. In this way, it contributes to a stronger public recognition of cultural heritage as a strategic resource for Europe’s society and economy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cyprus University of Technology, CY 3036, Limassol, Cyprus

    Pavlos Chatzigrigoriou

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  1. Pavlos Chatzigrigoriou
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Correspondence to Pavlos Chatzigrigoriou .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus

    Marinos Ioannides

  2. Arlington, VA, USA

    Eleanor Fink

  3. School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Antonia Moropoulou

  4. Institut für Museumsforschung, Berlin, Germany

    Monika Hagedorn-Saupe

  5. Promoter s.r.l., Peccioli, Italy

    Antonella Fresa

  6. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Gunnar Liestøl

  7. Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Vlatka Rajcic

  8. INSA, Strasbourg, France

    Pierre Grussenmeyer

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Chatzigrigoriou, P. (2016). Taking the Next Step in Digital Documentation of Historic Cities. In: Ioannides, M., et al. Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection. EuroMed 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10058. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48496-9_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48496-9_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48495-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48496-9

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