The project content partners have gathered extensive amount of digital objects related to various types of folk culture, but this data has been so far available only to a limited audience through simple tools. Some of this data has been in fact available only to the employees of the preservation and research institutions because they did not have both resources and IT experience necessary to make the date more visible and exploitable. In addition, the data and metadata created by various types of institutions in different countries may differ significantly. There have been no standards for creation, handling and utilization of these data. Also the strategies and methodologies of use of this data in regional development, including cooperation with specialized services and institutions, are missing. The project aims to address these challenges. The general objective of the project is creation of innovative tools for sustainable use and preservation of existing folk cultural heritage resources gathered by partnering institutions, promotion of this treasury and improvement of the conditions for their broad public use and supporting the potential investments. The specific objective is development and implementation of common database and single access point to various types of digital content created by project partners related to the folk culture, such as images, videos or audioaccompanied by properly created metadata available to public and containing the tools for stakeholders from the domains of public administration, research, education, cultural heritage preservation, tourism and regional development. This whole system called ETNOFOLK portal, will be available at http://www.etnofolk.eu and will provide access to at least 135 000 images, 140 hours of audio, 60 hours of video and 80 geographical maps in the first phase (but probably much more as extensive amount of the digital content will be created during the project). The second specific objective is elaboration of common strategies for use of these resources based on the best available practices and providing the methodologies and toolkits for various target groups. Each of the content partners provides quite unique digital content, specific in its form and regional coverage. Making all this content accessible from one single access point will create a unique common knowledge base, which will contribute to understanding of the individual cultural identities of particular regions and also the  common cultural identity of all people living in the Central European region. Each partner will bring his specific experience with data and metadata creation and their use. Based on this experience, the common standards and strategies will be elaborated.

The project will consist of five workpackages. The first two will be dedicated to project management, knowledge management and dissemination. Workpackage 3 will focus on content preparation and definition of standards for metadata while Workpackage 4 will consist of the development of the core technology allowing the access to the gathered data, including sophisticated tools and services based on the user requirements survey. The Workpackage 5 will focus on strategies for capitalization of folk culture heritage in Central Europe.