Abstract

This book provides an overview of various challenges and contemporary research activities in cultural heritage information focusing particularly on the cultural heritage content types, their characteristic and digitization challenges; cultural heritage content organization and access issues; users and usability as well as various policy and sustainability issues associated with digital cultural heritage information systems and services.    Cultural Heritage Information, the first book in the peer-reviewed i-Research series, contains eleven chapters that have been contributed by seventeen leading academics from six countries.  The book begins with an introductory chapter that provides a brief overview of the topic of digital cultural heritage information with the subsequent chapters addressing specific issues and research activities in this topic. The ordering of the chapters moves from scene setting on policies and infrastructures, through considerations of interaction, access and objects, through to concrete system implementations. The book concludes by looking forward to issues around sustainability, in the widest sense, that are necessary to think about in order to maximize the availability and longevity of our digital cultural heritage.   The key topics covered are:

• Managing digital cultural heritage information 
• Digital humanities and digital cultural heritage (alt-history and future directions)
• Management of cultural heritage information: policies and practices
• Cultural heritage information: artefacts and digitization technologies
• Metadata in cultural contexts – from manga to digital archives in linked open data environment
• Managing cultural heritage: information systems architecture
• Cultural heritage information users and usability
• A framework for classifying and comparing interactions in cultural heritage information systems
• Semantic access and exploration in cultural heritage digital libraries
• Supporting exploration and use of digital cultural heritage materials: the PATHS perspective
• Cultural heritage information services: sustainability issues.  

Readership: This will be essential reading for researchers in Information Science specifically in the areas of digital libraries, digital humanities and digital culture. It will also be useful for practitioners and students in these areas who want to know the different research issues and challenges and learn how they have been handled in course of various research projects in these areas.
Professor Ian Ruthven is Professor of Information Seeking and Retrieval, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Strathclyde. 
Professor Gobinda Chowdhury BSc Hons, MSc, PhD, FCLIP is Professor in Information Science at iSchool@northumbria, and Head of the Department of Mathematics and Information Sciences at Northumbria University. 

This edited volume is penned by a range of contributors from diverse backgrounds. This is a bonus as it means that the issues covered include not only information seeking behaviour, but also concerns about access to materials, interface design, copyright issues and a broad overview of many topics associated with heritage materials.
Journal of Pedagogic Development
Cultural Heritage Information: Access and Management is for students, researchers, and practitioners who want to understand digital heritage’s unique challenges and learn how they have been handled in institutional projects.
Margot Note
Director of Archives and Information Management
World Monuments Fund
Overall, this book provides a global overview of issues related to cultural heritage information access and management. The eighteen authors span six countries and the diversity provides a welcome change in perspective from most texts that focus on American institutions.
Nicole Garrett Smeltekop
Michigan State University Libraries
Library Resources & Technical Services
The contributors ... all bring with them considerable expertise and experience in the world on online information management. As a vehicle for provoking more thought and discussion about matters relating to information sciences and the digital world, it more than achieves its aim.
Lise Summers
Archives and Manuscripts
"Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Ian Ruthven (Professor of Information Seeking and Retrieval, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Strathclyde) and G. G. Chowdhury (Professor of Information Science, Northumbria University, Newcastle), Cultural Heritage Information is comprised of eleven impressively informed and informative articles by lead researchers in the history and impact of digitally transmitted and preserved information upon our cultural legacies. Cultural Heritage Information is a critically important and seminal contribution to academic library reference collections and supplemental studies reading lists with respect to digital libraries, digital humanities and digital culture."
Midwest Book Review
As this is the first book in the new series started by the Facet Publishing it is proper to congratulate the editors, authors and the publisher with a good start.
Information Research
Provides a number of viewpoints to inform and challenge readers on the primary issues of digital humanities. Academic libraries serving library and information science programs and libraries engaged in digital humanities projects would be advised to consider this book.
Catholic Library World
... useful for students, researchers, and early practitioners who wish to become more conversant with the challenges and practices of cultural heritage digital environments.

K. Irwin
University of Nevada
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