Workshop Intangible Heritage (project leader of the IMP-project) and ICOM Belgium Flanders is hosting an online session: “capturing intangible cultural heritage into data: towards a standard for recording living heritage in museums’ collection management systems”, as part of the ongoing work of the CIDOC ICH Working Group. This event takes place virtually at 14h00-16h00 CET. 

Museums have a vital interest in contextualising and bringing together all aspects and types of cultural heritage. As such museums have revealed themselves as privileged partners and spaces for contributing to the safeguarding of intangible heritage, supporting a.o. the transmission, care and promotion of intangible heritage.

Thresholds related to ensuring the viability of intangible heritage in museum contexts however are still numerous. Up until today, e.g. museums’ collection management systems are not equipped for registering intangible heritage adequately. Interoperability of data on intangible heritage – often dispersed in diverging inventories – is complicated by the fact that no (inter)national agreed upon standards for recording these data exist and no common methodologies have been developed that take into full consideration the specificities of the participatory and future-oriented spirit of the UNESCO 2003 Convention. 

A series of pertinent and practical questions need to be addressed to grasp the layering of issues. We define three working pillars for this purpose. The first is a theoretical one that studies the need and gains for museums in integrating intangible heritage into their operations. The second and third pillars are then rather methodological: in what way is registration organised and what technical solutions exist or need to be developed to integrate this participatory process into museum systems. Here we aspire to come up with solutions for the richly diversified types of organisations. A standard can only be obtained by consensually addressing questions around ownership, collaborative engagement and integration of data.

Modalities: online via Zoom: confirm your attendance by registering (deadline: May 15, 2023).