Abstract
The heritage of any place is required to be conserved, documented, and protected to the extent possible for the benefit of future generations to retain its culture, pride, and traditions. Advancements in information, communication, and digital technologies have considerably extended supports in identifying, preserving, and managing cultural heritage items. The use of web-based applications and digital tools plays a significant role in preserving and sharing cultural assets. This chapter proposes the importance of building a comprehensive cultural heritage information system for preserving and conserving the cultural heritages pertaining to one of the UNESCO's world listed cultural heritages in India named Agra Fort. The researcher highlights the opportunities and the need for conserving the knowledge content of the heritage items associated with Agra Fort.
TopIntroduction
We are living in a period characterized by fast and revolutionary changes in all the spheres of life including the culture, environment, society, and technology. The development of culture is a historical process, and its characteristics vary from country to country and community to community. Expectations about practices and values in visual art, architecture, acting, music, dance, recitation, and ritual develop over a long period, differing radically from culture to culture and, within cultures, often cross-class and gender” (Gillman 2010). The cultural heritage of any place is an integral part of the life of the people who belong to it irrespective of the community, caste, religion, the social and economic status they possess. It is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group society that is inherited from past generations’ (Falser, 2011). The heritage of any place is required to be conserved, documented, and protected to the extent possible for the benefit of future generations to retain its culture, pride, and traditions. Every heritage item embeds knowledge- cultural, scientific, and technological destruction of heritage sites in the name of development causes serious damages to the continuity of development in all spheres of human activity. The new philosophy of cultural heritage combines cultural and natural heritage, in line with the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted in 1972 (UNESCO 1972). Conservation of heritage especially knowledge heritage is essential for future generations to move forward instead of getting degenerated. Conservation requires a correct perspective of the item or environment to be conserved and also the full control of data and knowledge related to the environment. Advancements in information, communication, and digital technologies have considerably extended support in identifying, preserving, and managing cultural heritage items. The use of web-based applications and digital tools plays a significant role in preserving and sharing cultural assets.
Digital archives of cultural heritage are an effective mechanism to preserve and store the data on endangered cultural heritage items. The application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to manage and conserve cultural heritage is the need of the hour. Establishing an exclusive digital archive and museum on a particular region or cultural heritage site or cultural inheritance can store, preserve, and help retrieve all the information about them at one place with the help of an easily searchable user interface. It can attract support for continuing and completing the work from different national/international organizations. Making the traditional and cultural richness accessible for further research and development enhances the concern for its protection and strength to rebuild or reshape the deformed structures as they were earlier. Such initiatives bring into control the full and reliable data heritage and create a visual replica of all the heritages items with their environment and maintain it using ICT and digital archiving tools specially developed by the international standards. The information system developed needs to be of interdisciplinary interest, a unique source for research, and of high significance to administrators, tourist departments and culture departments, and conservation activists.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cultural Heritage Information System (CHIS): It represents the technological leverage with which it will be possible to develop value-added services which can enhance the business environment through personalized services.
Cultural Heritage (CH): Designates a monument, group of buildings, or site of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological, or anthropological value. The culture we inherit from our predecessors is called our cultural heritage. This heritage exists at various levels-human heritages; national cultural heritages, mixed heritages etc., and have historic and cultural values. Heritage can be of many things-buildings, monuments, architectural creation, treasures of knowledge, scientific inventions and discoveries, intellectual achievements, etc.
Information System: Information systems are powerful general-purpose information management tools and can perform complex queries.
Metadata: Metadata is data about data and it describes how and when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data is formatted. Metadata is represented as information about information to indicate the properties of a specific item and is an essential component of any information system. It enables context to data content and to understand the relation between the object through ontology. Once the heritage items are identified the quality and the quantity of collected data and metadata are to be evaluated.Metadata is very important for discovering and searching a particular item.
Documentation: Documentation and information systems play a pivotal role in the management, maintenance, and guidance of any heritage conservation project. To preserve the cultural indicators in the form of texts, visuals, audio-videos resources, art forms, etc for the future generations is to be taken care to revert them to the past glory and historical feelings of pride and making them accessible to the present and future generations for research and dissemination through information systems. Best practices are to be adopted to collect the items of cultural importance and the ideal technical tools are to be used to preserve, document, manage, present/visualize and disseminate them. Making the digital collection accessible to the interested will enhance the visibility of the knowledge content of the region to conservation experts, administrators, and others concerned as well as for researchers at the global level.
Digital Archives: This is an effective mechanism to preserve and store the endangered and degraded heritage items of cultural heritage. An archival depository of digital resources is an effective mechanism to easily retrieve the items stored in it. The documents and visuals related to cultural heritage, on the verge of extinction and degradation, need to be digitally archived so that they can be referred for conservation to prevent loss.
Heritage: Something which is inherited from the past is simply called heritage. The transmission of culture is carried forward from one generation to the other generation and is influenced by the physical and social environment. Heritage items are a legacy that is inherited from the past and is a sign of the societies’ achievements and they tag to who, how far past generations have reached, and where they have left us on the path to progress. Heritage includes natural as well as the cultural environment and is an instrument for growth and change. Heritage contains knowledge embedded in them on the technology we have developed.
Culture: Culture is a way of life. It is an expression of finer aspects of the lifestyle of a group which refers to the patterns of thought and behavior of people. It also includes values, beliefs, rules of conduct, and patterns of social, political, and economic organizations. These are passed on from one generation to the next by formal as well as informal processes.
Ontology: Ontology follows relatedness between the terms and sorts individual items into a specific scheme. Many ontology frameworks exist, and a few among them are CIDOC CRM, AAT, BIBO, FRBR, CiTO, FaBio, HiCO, etc. There are four main components in the ontology: class, data property, object property, and individuals.
Preservation: Preservation is an action that preserves cultural heritage objects and historical objects. A heritage information system can store and retrieve a large number of documents and other heritage items which are heterogeneous. The major part of the collection in a conventional system holds documents only which are not sufficient for research and conservation. ICT and digital technologies can be effectively utilized to represent, document, archive, protect, preserve and communicate cultural heritage knowledge.