Challenge
The challenge posed is titled: How could we better leverage and more easily manage the information from the different sources we use to streamline the assessment of immovable cultural heritage?
Context
The Cultural Heritage Service is part of the General Directorate of Culture of the Department of Basque Language, Culture, and Sports of the Provincial Council of Biscay. Among its functions are the promotion and safeguard of the architectural heritage of Biscay.
Currently, the Cultural Heritage Service has technical assistance for the assessment of immovable heritage (generally, farmhouses). This service, which can be requested by both individuals and municipalities, aims to inform about possible interventions that may be carried out on buildings (generally, architectural reforms). Technical advice already has a procedure that consists, broadly speaking, of:
- A preliminary phase of information gathering on the property, aimed at preparing for the subsequent visit.
- An on-site visit to the heritage property, with the participation of technical staff from the Cultural Heritage Service, the owner of the property, a technical person responsible for the intervention and a technical architect from the corresponding municipality. During this visit, content is generated in the form of notes, photos, videos, audios, about the visit and the different elements of heritage value found (mainly architectural elements such as arches, walls, pillars, beams, windows, roofs, etc.) in the building and its surroundings. This content is later dumped in a folder linked to its own file, but it is not labeled or processed linguistically.
- A phase that involves researching and gathering historical information from various sources (analog, digital, and analog in the process of being digitized, such as online archives, books, records, and historical files) with the goal of identifying relevant historical events that have impacted the building's construction phases. At this point, similar queries are conducted across different sources, and the "fragments" or relevant facts from this research are typically compiled into a Word document or shared folders. The speed and ability to locate sources and relevant information quickly depends largely on the experience and knowledge of the person conducting the research.
- A phase of interpretation of the information to build a “history” or biography of the property: a historical disposition of the life of the property since its construction, in which the main milestones of its life are pointed out, the constructive elements that constitute them and where its patrimonial singularity resides.
- Drafting of the dossier, in which the content is overturned and ordered with the pertinent recommendations and/or obligations for the adequate conservation of the different elements of patrimonial value. It is delivered in PDF.
We have detected at least the following areas of opportunity:
- Take advantage of the moment of digitization of analog files to optimize the information to be extracted.
- Making the insights and knowledge generated from each property heritage assessment accessible and usable for other valuation processes and by different team members.
- Integration of information sources to enable faster and more comprehensive information search, exploration, and retrieval.
- Visualizing and connecting information from different sources to facilitate interpretation and understanding.
Challenge description (PDF)
Video Infoday
Slides Infoday
FAQS Infoday