This is the first milestone published by the consortium of the Action “The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages” (ARMA). The ARMA Action will show how medieval reading culture evolved and became a fundament of European culture and a European movement, using manuscripts and early printed books that were produced between c. 500 and c. 1550. The consortium partners will do so by bringing together digital collections of such medieval artefacts in Europeana and using these and other collections to create additional educational content and context.

This report is the result of Activity 1, Selection of Content. This Activity ran from 1 October 2020 (the start date of the ARMA Action) until the end of January 2021. The report presents a selection plan of the identified content and a digitisation plan. The list per partner will show metadata models used for content description, image quality and educational purposes and will be the basis for evaluating the necessary improvements in data quality according to the Europeana Publishing Framework (EPF). (Action (2019-EU-IA-0032) Grant Agreement, Annex 1, p.10).

Download the full report with annexes (225 p.)

Download the report without the annexes (20 p.)

The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) is an important protocol to share and use digitised images in high quality, but is not yet widely implemented across cultural heritage institutions in Europe. For this reason, the ARMA project paid special attention to the implementation and use of this protocol with all the partners, including Europeana.

Download the full report (37 p.)

Every data providing partner identified relevant objects and indicated how they relate to the theme of the Art of Reading in the Middle Ages. These objects will be highlighted in browse discovery points, and will form parts of editorial outputs aimed at delivering a strong user experience.

Download the full report

During the Action the working group – consisting of curators and educators from the partner countries – held several web meetings, discussing a variety of subjects. This knowledge exchange resulted in a series of recommendations. The working group intends to continue the knowledge exchange after the end of the Action and to involve colleagues from other countries to strengthen the position of medieval cultural heritage in an educational context.

Download the full report

Engagement plan is describing how the ARMA consortium will achieve audience development based on the use of collection presentations and datasets, social media, blogs, galleries and a curated online exhibition. The plan also outlines which partners we will be involved and how the material will be incorporated into relevant education platforms.

Download the full report

The ARMA sustainability plan is based on the commitments and endeavours of project partners and Europeana Foundation as the operator of the Europeana Core Service Platform.

The knowledge generated through the project has been collected and showcased on the project website and will remain accessible. The consortium partners will continue communicating about the project results to their local communities and other stakeholders in their networks. The Action took every step (i) to ensure the accessibility of the created content for at least 3 years after the end of the project, (ii) to document the outcomes (eg. recommendations, specifications) that can guide future projects in the domain, and (iii) to contextualise delivered medieval objects through editorial and educational resources.

Download the full report