NOESIS - An European Funded Project

The NOESIS consortium consists of eight members spanning four EU member countries and four Mediterranean partner countries. It includes a Small-To-Medium (SME) company, a research centre, four libraries, and two universities:

- University of Westminster
- Team progetti
- National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation
- University of Balamand
- CULTNAT
- Patriarchate of Jerusalem
- Greek Orthodox Metropolia
- Museum of Kykkos Monastery

The interests and skills offered by the various consortium members are complementary and include scholars, librarians, curators, technology developers (imaging recognition, online databases etc) and photography and digitisation experts. Details of the key contributions of each of the partners are listed below but our plan is very briefly to use the historical expertise of the Greek (NBCF) partner to coordinate the selection of the suitable manuscript collections for the development and testing of the system. Our plan is to start with selections from Alexandria and Jerusalem.

A sample collection from Cyprus will then be used to test and refine the ink and support models created based on the first 2 samples. Finally the complete system will be evaluated with samples from Lebanon.

The Italian partner (TEAM) will acquire suitable high resolution digital camera equipment and be deployed to the sites of all libraries and museums to capture the necessary images. He will also design and maintain the consortium’s web site and file depository.

The UK Partner (Westminster) will develop the computational models for the inks and supports, the required database, the XML/XSLT structures necessary for the portability of the data and the user interface of the online system.

The historical data and references will be supplied by all Mediterranean partners coordinated by the Greek and Lebanese partners. Finally the suitability of using the system on other objects (such as colour inks used on paintings) will be tested at the Amman library. In our budget we have ensured that all partners have adequate resources to meet the local personnel needs (based on typical costs supplied by the institutions). In detail this entails a key contact per participating library and museum, 2 researchers from the Greek partner. A manager, a photographer and a web editor attached to the Italian partner. A manager (who will play the overall coordinating role for the project), a senior researcher (who will coordinate the software development and the various tests), and three research assistants who will develop the various software components of the system. We have also included the necessary funds to cover:

a) the cost (hardware and software) of installing the created system at all sites,

b) the acquisition of the specialist digital camera and lighting equipment by the
Italian Partner

c) the software and hardware requirements (digital camera, 3 workstations with suitable development software) of the software development team of the UK partner.

All meetings described in the management plan and the planned workshop meetings are all included and we have ensured that all partners will have the opportunity to participate to all required progress meetings (a total of 77 trips over 3 years).

A substantial amount has also been included to cover the insurance costs for the travelling to the Mediterranean partners with the digital capture equipment. Finally a modest consumables budget has also been included for all partners.