Continuous Access to Cultural Heritage (CATCH)

In the Continuous Access to Cultural Heritage (CATCH) programme, researchers from the physical sciences and cultural heritage managers work together on innovative methods for the management of heritage and on new ways of making collections accessible.

The themes of the first rounds of the programme were:

• semantic operability through the use of meta-data
• improved knowledge through automated analyses
• personalisation through presentation

The 2008 round placed more emphasis on the humanities. The projects that arose from this are connected to the humanities, IT and cultural heritage within the themes of:

• interoperability of large-scale and distributed sources
• visualisation and simulation
• historical dimensions and modern interpretations

Research, implementation and support are the principles of the research projects. Some examples:

• a profile generator with which a museum visitor learns to recognise his tastes in relation to the collection and then uses that profile to receive personalised tours and services
• automatic keyword suggestions to support documentation specialists when describing audiovisual materials
• making audio archives searchable using speech recognition
• analysing archaeological discoveries using automatic image recognition and comparison

Runs to 2014 

CATCH started in 2004 and runs to 2014.

New funding round uncertain 

It is not certain whether a new funding round will occur.

NWO and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have made 9 million euros available. The participating cultural heritage institutions contribute 2.8 million euros.

IT researchers and cultural heritage managers 

The research teams consist of a PhD student, a postdoc and an IT programmer. The research is conducted in cultural heritage institutions including the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Naturalis and the Gemeente Museum Den Haag. Eighteen research projects will be realised.

CATCH Meetings

Regularly, CATCH organises meetings for the researchers involved in the programme.

Final CATCH Event 

Date: 28 januari 2016 
Time: 9:00 – 17:30 
Location: Cobbenhagen gebouw, Universiteit Tilburg 

CATCH Event ‘Digital Cross-over in humanities’ 
6 June 2014 
Amsterdam, The Rijksmuseum

CATCH meeting FACT 
13 December 2013  
Amsterdam, Meertens Institute

CATCH meeting MISS 
4 Oktober 2013 
Den Bosch, BHIC

CATCH meeting COGITCH 
28 June 2013 
Utrecht, University Museum

CATCH meeting WebART 
Presentations 
19 April 2013 
The Hague, Koninklijke bibliotheek

CATCH Midterm Event: CATCH in Context 
14 December 2012  
Leiden, Museum Volkenkunde 
Presentations

Catch meeting BRIDGE  
22 June 2012 
Hilversum, Het Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid

CATCH meeting at SEALINCmedia 
11 May 2012 
Delft, Museum Lambert van Meerten

CATCH Meeting HiTiME: e-History 
1 November 2011 
Amsterdam, International Institute of Social History (IISG)

User Involvement in Linked Cultural Data Symposium 
7 February 2011 
Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit

LINKS - Reconstructing Historical Families 
26 November 2010 
Amsterdam, International Institute of Social History (IISG)

Matchmaking en CATCH meeting at BRIDGE - Finding, Linking and Organizing Sources for Media Research 
22 October 2010 
Rotterdam, museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

ANGORA - "Digital Cultural Heritage Goes Social" 
11 June 2010 
Amsterdam Hystorisch Museum

MuSEUM - Museum 2.0 
20 February 2009 
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

MITCH - Catch meeting 
21 November 2008 
Naturalis Leiden

MuNCH - Catch meeting 
27 June 2008 
Museum voor Beeld en Geluid

CATCH Meeting Interoperability 
29 February 2008 
Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN)

WITCHCRAFT - Catch meeting 
27 April 2007 
Meertens Instituut

CHOICE - Television archives and the semantic web 
9 February 2007 
Museum voor Beeld en Geluid

Catch Meeting 
3 February 2006 
Amersfoort, Rijksdienst voor Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek

Accessing Cultural Heritage Collection using Semantic Web Techniques 
25 November 2005 
Den Haag, Auditorium of de Koninklijke Bibliotheek