This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 612789

TURKIYE CUMHURIYETI KULTUR VE TURIZM BAKANLIGI

The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism is responsible for maintaining, developing, disseminating, promoting, evaluating and adopting cultural and historical assets, providing cooperation between private and governmental sectors. The organization of the Ministry has nine different departments including the General Directorate of Libraries and Publications which mainly works on library services for the public and also publishing major materials (www.kultur.gov.tr, www.kygm.gov.tr).

The General Directorate of Libraries and Publications’ mission is to transfer cultural assets to future generations, widespread accessing of information, compile, preserve and serve cultural heritage to the society. The directorate serves as a senior management of all (1.117) the public libraries. With particular regard to European projects and digital cultural heritage, the Directorate participated in the INDICATE Project, with a special contribution to the case study on the use of the e-infrastructures for digital preservation of cultural heritage data; as part of the project, it hosted a workshop on digital preservation and the final conference in Ankara, with participants from all over Europe and the Mediterranean region.

Web-site: www.kultur.gov.tr

ROLE IN THE PROJECT

The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism – General Directorate of Libraries and Publications is responsible for the libraries-related research of the RICHES Project which mainly focuses on cultural heritage within Europe. The main focus is on the sociological aspects of library usage, including libraries’users, their needs, digital world vs. libraries. The partner will also participate to the research on the use and re-use of built environments with the case study on the Hamamonu District in Ankara. For this, the Directorate will establish cooperation with the other concerned Directorates in the Ministry.