Digital Technologies Towards Extended and Advanced Approaches to Heritage Knowledge and Accessibility

Abstract

The new directions that digital reality is currently taking include an ever-greater involvement and interaction with the human being. In the field of cultural heritage, there is a need to find new ways to visit, enjoy, understand, and preserve cultural assets, also through digital fruition. The social value of cultural heritage and citizens' participation became crucial to increase quality of life, public services, creative activities, public engagement, new understanding, and education through technology development. Digital technologies can also contribute to safeguarding endangered cultural heritage preventive interventions, as well as ensuring equal and wide access to cultural assets and heritage sites. The aim is to find positive interconnections between physical and virtual spaces by applying digital systems to find additional knowledge and supporting the access to our common heritage through new technologies. The chapter explores more in detail these topics through the description of methodological approaches, applications of Semantic Web technologies, and latest projects.