Within the vast and numerous initiatives promoted by MIBACT, there are:
- the establishment of the "Istituto Centrale per la Digitalizzazione del Patrimonio Culturale " (Central Institute for the Digitization of Cultural Heritage, "Digital Library" www.beniculturali.it/ente/istituto-centrale-per-la-digitalizzazione-del-...) which coordinates and promotes programs for the digitization of cultural heritage under the responsibility of the Ministry. To this end, it draws up the National Plan for the digitization of cultural heritage. It also coordinates the digitization programs of the cultural heritage under the responsibility of the Ministry;
- The GHOST Award ( http://www.aap.beniculturali.it/ghost.html) , launched in 2019 by the "General Directorate - Creativita Contemporanea" (MIBACT), aims to enhance active figures in digital photographic post-production who contribute with their talent to the realization of the works of the photographers with whom they collaborate.
The competition offers four prizes, of the gross amount of EU 4,000.00 (four thousand/00) each. The winners undertake to conduct a seminar organized for groups of young people under 35 (including photographers, post-producers and scholars of the subject who will have participated in a special selection), to illustrate the methods and values of their work and the relationship of comparison with the photographer that the work submitted to the competition, with his permission, has involved.
- "Fare Cinema" is the thematic review dedicated to the promotion of the Italian cinema and film industry. Launched in 2018 (by General Directorate-Cinema and audiovisual of MIBACT, in collaboration with MAECI, ANICA, Cinecitta- Istituto Luce).The 2020 edition was made entirely online, taking place in a week and available worldwide on RaiPlay platform and the contents are subtitled in three languages, English, French and Spanish.
- partnership between "General Directorate- Educazione e Ricerca! (MIBACT) with the international DiCultHer Association (Network School in Digital Cultural Heritage, Arts and Humanities) which brings together over seventy organizations including universities, research institutions, schools, technical institutes, cultural institutes, associations and public and private companies, with the common goal of creating a networking-campus 'able to activate the elaboration of a training offer coordinated with the national system to build the complex of digital skills.
- "New Italian Books" is the digital portal for promoting Italian book publishing (launched in 2020). It is the site that promotes Italian publishing, language and culture in the world. It's bilingual, and aimed at Italian and foreign publishers, literary agents, translators, Italianists, Italian cultural institutes, Italians abroad, and all literature lovers. With the goal of encouraging Italian publishing production in the world, and facilitating the translation process of the latest releases, the website offers reading opinions, in-depth analysis, interviews, information on prizes and contributions to translations. It also offers a database for publishers, authors and translators. The site creates relations between all players in the publishing chain, in Italy and abroad, with the valuable support of the Italian Cultural Institutes. New Italian Books it's a project promoted by "Treccani" with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) and the "Centro per il libro e la lettura" (MIBACT), in collaboration with the Italian Publishers Association.
Results expected from the implementation of the activies are:
- census of digital collections and services for online access, such as Internet sites, portals and databases and elaborates and implements the "National Plan for the digitization of cultural heritage";
- raising the attention on the actual role played by these technical/creative figures in the cultural and creative sectors and the connection to the digital and technological knowledge and environment;
- enhancing our cinema and audiovisual sector and professionalism;
- connecting people and promoting the flow of cultural contents.
The goals expected by MOVIO project include:
- creation of an open-source software that can help cultural institutes stage high-quality digital exhibitions and thematic itineraries, while facilitating the recovery of available yet underused digital contents;
- creation of a software in which technology is put in the service of enhancing contents, instead of vice versa;
- improving the IT literacy of all professional figures involved in the promotion and enhancement of cultural heritage;
- staging of two online digital exhibitions that can serve as best practices for all other cultural institutions interested in pursuing similar initiatives;
- staging, over the course of the project, of other digital exhibitions put together by cultural institutions that took part in training activities sponsored by MOVIO;
- making it possible for very small cultural institutions ( such as minor museums, non-profit cultural associations, etc...) to use a high-quality kit to make available online their cultural heritage, which often suffers from very little visibility due to limited staff, funds, and resources;
- online dissemination of digital cultural content related to renowned masterpieces, and more importantly to little-known or "invisible" cultural heritage, through a variety of digital objects (text, images, audio, videos, 3D, animation, etc.) and technologies that encourage interaction with users;
- providing access to cultural content on the part of remote users, at any time and from anywhere, and encouraging, whenever possible, the direct involvement of users in enriching the digital cultural content provided by the institutions.
Among the functions attributed to the Central Institute for the Digitization of Cultural Heritage, "Digital Library" is the evaluation of the status of the digitization projects implemented by the Ministry offices and monitors the consistency of the digital resources available. Furthermore, MIBACT promoted the OPEN-DATA project http://dati.beniculturali.it (2016-2020) aimed at the production of an ontology format relating to the personal data and services of cultural institutes and places and the description of cultural events prior to publication in "Linked Open Data" format of the datasets on cultural places and events relating to:
-about 8000 between archaeological areas and parks, monuments, monumental complexes and other permanent exhibition structures intended for public use Cultural events (exhibitions, conferences, conventions, seminars, catalog presentations, etc.) organized by MIBACT and peripheral Institutes. One of the results of this first phase of the project is the Cultural-ON ontology (drawn up in the context of the Convention between the Directorate General- Organizzazione (MIBACT) and the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the National Research Council ( ISTC-CNR) and the publication of datasets of Places of Culture and Cultural Events (DG Organization), Registry of Italian Libraries (ICCU), State Archives (ICAR) and Institute for the Cataloguing and Documentation (ICCD). At the same time, the MOVIO-kit will take into account the findings of the publication titled Guidelines for staging online virtual exhibitions, a major achievement borne out of a cooperative effort involving the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries (ICCU) and the Central Institute for Archives (ICAR), in collaboration with the Technological Observatory for Cultural Heritage and Activities (OTEBAC). The publication aims to illustrate the state of the art in the field of online virtual exhibition based on the concrete experiences of various Italian institutes and an analysis of similar initiatives on the international stage.
More generally, the process of digitalization of contents that is going on at the global level, of course has a big impact also in Italy, a country were digitalization is rapidly advancing, but not in an homogenous form. In the EU DESI index https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/desi, Italy is at 21st place in the ranking of digital penetration. But this result is an average between sector that have been already transformed by digital revolution and others that are still mainly working in the traditional form.