In September a proposal was submitted to the ACTS program of the European Community for an extension to the VISEUM project. The proposal would bring several new partners into the VISEUM project, create several new museums sites, and provide significant enhancements to the software. The initiation of the proposal has brought us together with several new potential partners. We believe that the relationships established through the creation of the project proposal will lead to further collaboration, through funding opportunities in Europe and through commercial ventures. Two of the new partners, one in Germany and the other in Italy, are associated with highly respected museums and research establishments.
The Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (bpk) in Berlin was established in 1965. It is a coordinating organization for seventeen museums in Berlin. Since it was founded it has collected, studied, and preserved works, collections and archives of photographers, publishing houses, institutions and private parties. It currently has one of the world's largest historical archives, with more than 11 million items in its collection. Artworks are a main part of its holdings. The bpk has purchased thousands of transparencies covering many of the world's largest museums. To finance its tasks the bpk provides a commercial image reproduction service to interested partners all over the world. It has acquired broad commercial as well as archival experience.
CNUCE, located in Pisa Italy, is an Institute of Italy's National Research Council. The National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - CNR) is the most important institution in Italy for public research. CNUCE undertakes research in a number of areas including hypertext/hypermedia, multimedia document systems, digital library systems, and multimedia information storage and retrieval. It has been involved in a number of European funded research programs. CNUCE, through research collaborations, has access to high-resolution images of paintings from the renowned Uffizzi gallery in Florence as well as photographic images from the Alinari Archives, one of the oldest and finest photographic archives in the world.