CHERI - Acquisition management and delivery of rich media in the Art and Cultural domain Stefano CUOMO 1 , Paolo ALONGI 2 , Salvatore LUSSO 3 ,Christian LAHANIER 3 and David Luigi FUSCHI 4 1 SPACE S.p.A. - via Marianna Nistri, 5 -59100 Prato Italy tel. +39 0574 610150, fax +39 0574 401443; stefano.cuomo@spacespa.it 2 SPACE S.p.A. - via Marianna Nistri, 5 -59100 Prato Italy tel. +39 0574 610150, fax +39 0574 401443; paolo.alongi@spacespa.it 3 Gruppo Atlantis S.p.A. - Loc.Pintoreddu Km 8,2 EX ss 131, Sestu (CA) Italy tel +39.070.22810305, fax +39.070.22810314; salvatore.lusso@gruppoatlantis.com 4 Laboratoire de Recherche des Museés de France –6, Rue des Pyramides75041 Paris France CEDEX 01 tel +33.1.40205652, fax +33.1.47033246; christian.lahanier@culture.gouv.fr 5 GIUNTI Multimedia Srl. – Ripa di Porta Ticinese, 91 –20143Milano Italy tel +39.02.03923374 fax +39.02.58103485; fuschi@giuntimultimedia.com Abstract. CHERI purpose is to promote broader adoption of IST technologies to significantly improve high quality images and other rich media in acquisition, management and delivery process in the Art and Culture domain. It defines transfer methods from museums and media archives to publisher’s digital systems, as well as viable integration methods between source institution’s existing systems and publisher’s ones. The project has 3 main goals: help memory institutions better exploit their resources; help publishing and media companies effectively access and use these digital collections; increase product quality and service productivity Therefore, the project proposes a new solution in the image and rich media brokering field in the art and culture domain, with a high level of integration in the value chain among suppliers (museums, archives) and customers (publishing, media industry). 1. Introduction A proper grounding in management has become essential for museum and cultural professionals due to the combination of the new-economic climate, the great value of cultural content and its direct relation not only to culture in general but to important and wide markets: education, tourism, entertainment and research,. At the same time the traditional cultural heritage scenario has been transformed in the last years by the development of new interactive multimedia solutions, joint with wide access opportunity and delivery of valuable content . The new scenario raise several critical issues, pertaining to management, protection and exploitation of digitised cultural content. These include, essentially, the critical problem of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) along with the protection from unauthorized use and exploitation of digital data. In this framework the CHERI project aims at defining the best possible method for transferring images and rich media from museums and media archives (sources) to publisher’s digital systems (end users). In the art and culture publishing sector quality is the distinguishing factor. Actors tend to publish the best quality work in order to gain new customers and locate their products at the vertex. A book on art or an exhibition catalogue is more than an object, is meant to give the owner the feeling of being again face to face with the exhibited objects, therefore quality and detail are crucial for the success. The quality is usually required not only in terms of picture (the shooting etc.) but also in terms of other factors like colours calibration print quality,