CALIMERA stands for Cultural Applications: Local Institutions Mediating Electronic Resource Access.

Perhaps the most important word in this acronym is "Local". CALIMERA has mobilised local cultural institutions for a new role as key players in transforming innovative technologies into helpful services for ordinary citizens - putting European cultural heritage at the service of the citizen.

Co-ordinated by the Libraries and Archives Department of the Municipality of Lisbon, the extensive project partnership included culturally innovative local authorities, national authorities bent on strategic development of local cultural institutions, public and private organisations with strong research management capability and a European-level networking association. The project commenced on 1 December 2003 and over its 18 month duration, this Coordination Action, funded under IST FP6 (Information Society Technologies – Sixth Framework Programme), also helped local public libraries, museums and archives to benefit from and contribute to the goals of the Programme 2002-2006, in enabling anywhere, at any time, natural access to IST services for all

The new watchwords for local cultural institutions, in moving towards a stable and predictable framework in which citizens and businesses can make use of the full potential of their creative energies are: Citizens, Creativity, Learning, Communication and Involvement.

The CALIMERA Network of policy makers, practitioners and suppliers covered 42 countries, including all EU Member States, bringing together local professionals, policy makers and suppliers at all levels. CALIMERA has also shared knowledge and best practice with potential research partners in Canada, China, India, USA and elsewhere.

The EU funding received by the consortium for this project amounted to € 899.933. Malta was represented on this consortium by the Department of Libraries and Archives and by the Malta Library and Information Association (MaLIA)

The results of CALIMERA:

• A portal website www.calimera.org provides easy access to all of the information which CALIMERA has produced.
• 42 Country Reports provide an in-depth analysis of the current situation in relation to public libraries, local museums and archives in each country and detail the developments which have followed the Oeiras Manifesto.
• The State of the Art Report on National and Local policies provides a concise check on progress toward policy level objectives, linked to the results of CALIMERA’s Policy Conference on A New Kind of Access, held in Copenhagen, January 2005.
• The Policy Toolkit provides support for all those who are developing policies for partnerships between museums, public libraries and archives backed up by case studies providing best practice examples.
• 23 individual Best Practice Guidelines on aspects of digital service provision, for policy makers and practitioners, covering Social, Management and Technical issues, have been compiled and translated into over 30 languages.
• A Policy and Best Practice Forum has been launched to stimulate discussion and development of ideas.
• Impact Measurement Recommendations assess the steps necessary to achieve greater systematic assessment of impact on users, leading to improved exploitation of cultural resources.
• The Report on Business Models for local cultural institutions highlights the most important business issues, in their adoption and delivery of technological solutions.
• A Solutions Noticeboard (http://solutions.calimera.org) provides an overview of solutions and research outputs relevant to digital local cultural services (together with access to expertise) in the form of both a Solution Providers Directory and a Solutions Directory.
• Training Guidelines assess the changed role and responsibilities of staff working in local cultural institutions in the digital era and the requirements for continuing education and training.
• The Research Roadmap takes an end-user and professional view of the research needs of local cultural institutions from a functional perspective and maps user requirements to IST research.
• A Community Mapping Model assesses the scope for combination of GIS and semantic web technologies for expressing the potential of local cultural communities.
• Usability Guidelines place this key topic in the context of the complete lifecycle of digital cultural communication applications targeted to the end-user.