— Posted by Richard Swetenham, DG INFSO, Head of unit: Access to Information

In modern society, government bodies at all levels – local, regional, national, European and international – collect vast amounts of information as part of their public tasks. Dissemination and re-use of public sector information (PSI) can be seen as

• a means to increase the transparency and accountability of government
• civic capital, working to increase citizen participation in government activities
• a means for improving internal government communication and efficiency
• a vehicle for promoting economic activity and innovation
• a means for international diplomacy and global information sharing

 in addition to the reasons for which it was originally collected.

Used properly, public data can be the raw material of innovation, creating a wealth of business opportunities that drive our economy forward. Government information is a form of infrastructure no less important to our modern life than our roads, electrical grid, or water systems. Read the full entry

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—  Posted by Javier Hernández-Ros, DG INFSO, Head of unit: Cultural Heritage and Technology Enhanced Learning

Last week, DG INFSO has made the Second progress report on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and on digital preservation in the European Union publicly available, providing a useful overview of both projects and issues in European digitisation.

In March I attended the launch of PrestoCentre a non profit organisation led by five of the major audiovisual archives organisations in Europe to facilitate the digitisation and preservation of our audiovisual collections across Europe. PrestoCentre is the result of more than 10 years of collaborative work under our IST research and innovation programmes of the leading archives in Europe: Institut National de l’Audivisuel (INA – FR) , Sound and Vision (Beeld en Geluid – NL), BBC (UK), RAI (IT) and ORF (A). Read the full entry

Number of views: 1003