EuroLiteraTur was an annual co-operation project, of European dimensions, developed between May 1, 2004 and April 30, 2005 and which was financed through the European Union "Culture 2000" Programme, 2004 Calls for Proposals, Book and Reading Section.
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The project has benefited of a good co-operation between the project leader, the National Museum of Romanian Literature, 6 co-organizers from 6 European countries and with the support of 45 local, national and European partners from 13 countries (Romania, Greece, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Poland, France, Portugal, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Sweden and Hungary).
The project accomplished all the proposed activities during a year of implementation and provided a product that contributes to the successful European cultural development. The project successfully reached its goal, objectives and results, adding new elements regarding the growth of the impact over the public and the dissemination of the project at a larger scale. EuroLiteraTur is now an innovative cultural product of European level: a virtual encyclopedia, presented as a multimedia interactive exhibition both on internet and as a part of the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of Romanian Literature. |
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Motivation |
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The initial motivation of the project was connected to stimulating the relation between the visitor and the cultural products offered by the National Museum of Romanian Literature. From a conceptual point of view, the project started from the idea of giving new meanings to the literary expositional discourse, according to the latest evolutions in the field, as things usually happen in the great European museums, by associating multimedia technologies.
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Concept
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The concept of the project proposes a modern alternative to the classical, motionless, literary discourse of the exhibition, through the multimedia digital technologies and through the transposition in 8 European languages (Romanian, English, French, Greek, Polish, Czech, Italian and Spanish). The project presents a multimedia interactive exhibition created as a virtual encyclopedia of the European literature which includes: photos (of writers, books, manuscripts); audio-video fragments (movies, interviews, music and poetry recitals and theatrical performances); historical and literary data; e-books. By its formal characteristics, (scientific and technical), the development of this project represents an innovative alternative to the classical type of literary exhibition by projecting a virtual and dynamic image of the European literature. |
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The theme of the exhibition |
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The current information presents a synthesis of the European literature through its most representative authors. The structure is chronological and includes the most important historical and literary stages of the European literature following the context (historical, artistic and philosophical) and the general and literary characteristics of each period, respecting the following periods: Antiquity, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Classicism and Baroque, Enlightenment, Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Parnassianism, Symbolism, Modern and Contemporary Literature. |
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Purpose |
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The main purpose of the project was to promote and encourage reading, the priority being to draw the young people close to the European common cultural values in the framework of the non-formal education. |
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Objectives |
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 To promote the cultural dialogue and the mutual knowledge of the European culture and literature;
To emphasize the common roots and the similar elements from the European literary heritage, the cultural diversity and the development of the new forms of literary expression;
To increase access and participation of the great public to the common cultural heritage of the European Union; |
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Activities |
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The project was implemented during a year : preparation period/design multimedia interactive exhibition - May 2004 - January 2005 (Bucharest, Athens, Rome, Prague, Lodz, Saragossa); organization of the permanent interactive multimedia exhibition- December 2004 - April 2005 (Bucharest, Romania); organization of the multimedia interactive itinerant exhibition - January - March, 2005 (Athens, Greece); organization of the multimedia interactive itinerant exhibition - January - March, 2005 (Saragossa, Spain); organization of the multimedia interactive exhibition - January - March, 2005 (Rome, Italy); organization of the multimedia interactive itinerant exhibition - February - April, 2005 (Lodz, Poland); organization of the multimedia interactive itinerant exhibition- February - April, 2005 (Prague, Czech Republic ); monitoring, evaluation and reporting - May 2004 - April 2005 (Bucharest, Athens, Rome, Prague, Lodz, Saragossa). |
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The technical project |
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EuroLiteraTur Project offers an interactive system of information presentation, organized on a progressive structure, technically implemented at a professional level and in record time by Magister Software, Romania, the co-organizer and the multimedia partner for the project, which brought its contribution to this project, being the company which had the responsibility to implement the interactive technical solution. The presentation infrastructure includes 3 kiosk touchscreen infrastructure systems of the latest generation, with audio-video multimedia extensions. Through some video-projectors the displayed content is presented on panoramic screens so that the public gets into the atmosphere of the exhibition. The IT infrastructure used includes a central server with a Windows 2000 Server operating system. The database of the exhibition is held by a Microsoft SQL Server and contains over 8.000 pages, in 8 European languages. Besides the articles with historical and literary information on over 600 European authors, the central server contains, over 100 e-books, about 100 video sequences and 200 audio sequences. The entire multimedia content is improved for the distribution to a large number of users through streaming technology integrated in the Internet Information Server web. |
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Results |
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All the 5 main anticipated results were fully achieved and the project offered in the end a competitive product which successfully contributes to the European cultural development - EuroLiteraTur: a multimedia interactive permanent exhibition, now part of the Permanent Exhibition of the National Museum of Romanian Literature;
5 itinerant multimedia interactive exhibitions in other 5 European cities (Athens, Saragossa, Rome, Lodz, Prague);
Promotional web site of the project, with direct link towards the online virtual encyclopedia;
6400 visitors of the exhibitions, at least 4230 visitors of the promotional website and of the online encyclopedia, 6 900 beneficiaries of the DVDs;
1000 de DVD-s, containing the application created by Macromedia Flash in English. |
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The role of co-organizers |
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The National Museum of Romanian Literature was the initiator and the project leader who co-ordinated all the activities of the project and ensured the general management of the project. The project benefited of a very good co-operation with all 6 co-organizers: The Prefect's office in Athens, Greece; Colline Romane Turismo SpA, Grottaferrata (RM), Italy; Tempo Training and Consulting, Prague, Czech Republic; The Academy of Social and Economical Sciences, Lodz, Poland; MT Servicios de Formation, Saragossa, Spain and Magister Software srl, Bucharest, Romania. 45 more associated partners form 13 European countries were co-opted and they contributed to the promotion and dissemination of results.
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Co-financing Institutions |
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The financing from the European Commission was of 149 950 Euro, while the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affaires of Romania co-financed the project with 10.790 Euro and promoted the events of the project on the portal.
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Direct beneficiaries |
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The project had followed and achieved to attract young people with the age between 7 and 18 years old by offering a quality literary content in a multimedia package easy to use and containing easy to access information. The project intended to attract them, to inform them, to teach them and to provoke the young people to read the real books of the European literature. The co-organizers used multiple methods to reach the target group and promoted also other events based on the content of the project: film projections, created after literary works, in Romania and Greece, literary workshops in Spain, thematic exhibitions in Poland. Our surveys regarding the visitors have indicated that almost 70% of the visitors of the exhibition in Bucharest were less than 30 years old. Most of the visitors appreciated the most the themes of the multimedia exhibition (55, 51%). |
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Indirect beneficiaries |
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The content of EuroLiteraTur was elaborated under the direct co-ordination of the experts in the History of European Literature and Comparative literature. Considering that the Museum was the main beneficiary and the project leader, professionals from the liberal arts' field were interested in the way the project was carried out from the technical and thematic point of view. In all the locations where of the exhibition was presented the visitors were divided in 2 categories: people who's hobbies are reading and art and professionals from diverse cultural fields. They all showed their appreciations and critics regarding the project and its content. The exhibition also attracted normal people and specialists who came due of the technical innovations offered by the project. The fact that the exhibition offered free access encouraged the public to visit EuroLiteraTur. |
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Added Value |
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Through its nature, the project encouraged the co-operation between different institutions in the member states of the European Union. The success of the project can be measured by the way it was implemented and, on the long term by taking into consideration that the co-organizers are interested in working together in new cultural projects starting from EuroLiteraTur. Now, although in a incipient form, the National Museum of Romanian, together with the co-organizers and some of the partners in the project, is preparing a framework in order to develop a European cultural network, based on EuroLiteraTur's structure. The content of EuroLiteraTur and its presentation represent a combination between the specialized literary information and the latest media technologies and this combination has to be proved extremely attractive especially for young people. Because the project intended to increase the public's perception over European cultural values, the initial number of 278 de authors was increased to 800 (out of which 608 were included in the multimedia exhibition), the public having so the possibility to get in contact with the culture of various countries, from a larger area. The European public had the possibility to be informed about authors from the European Union and from the South-East European countries whose literary representatives were not well known till now. |
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Consequences |
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The implementation of this project led to important consequences and benefits for the project leader and his partners and actively contributed to the cultural development in Romania: the promotion of a reliable internal and international institutional image; the creation of a cultural projects department and of a young, dynamic and professional team; the development of a new concept of the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of Romanian Literature; the development of new internal partnerships; the organization of an external loyal and experienced external group of partners; the development of new European cultural projects; foreseeing of the first museums national network and its affiliation to the European network NEMO; foreseeing the national thematic network of museums and memorial houses; the insurance of a the partnership framework in order to create a European literary thematic network; the creation of the necessary premises for applying to structural funds. |
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National Museum of Romanian Literature
12, Dacia Boulevard, sector 1, Bucharest, Romania
Tel/Fax: (+)4021-212.96.51; (+)4021-212.96.53
E-mail: projects@mlr.ro
Website: www.mlr.ro |
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| Copyright © 2006 Consultancy Centre for European Cultural Programmes |
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