ABSTRACT
This book is assembled with a confident, if not always fully examined, assumption: namely, that the digital media – according to the announcement of the theme of the conference – have “the capacity to become a tool to capture both the tangible and intangible essence of both the cultural heritage and the society that created or used the sites” (New Heritage Conference 2006). Even the most enthusiastic promoters of the new cultural technologies admit that there are still a number of unresolved problems. The technology itself has to be developed, democratized, and made more widely accessible. Visualization alone should not be the primary goal. The profundity of the interpretation needs improving, as does the permanence of the data storage media. But since we all agree that we are at the very beginning of the process, there is faith that conferences like this one and other digital heritage initiatives will eventually overcome the existing obstacles “to capture the complexity of cultural heritage and the related social, political, and economic issues surrounding the sites or artefacts.”
