ARXIVE Baseline Assessment of Use-Case Pilots (D5.1)

This deliverable, Baseline Assessment of Use-Case Pilots (D5.1), prepared under Baseline Assessment and Identification of Pilot-Specific Needs (T5.1) of Use-Case Pilots Testing and Training Materials (WP5), presents the baseline assessment (BA) of the ARXIVE use-case pilot institutions, namely: the National Library of Greece (NLG) and Museums and Monuments of Portugal, E.P.E. (MMP), through the D. Diogo de Sousa Archaeology Museum (MDDS). It establishes the operational, technical and organisational starting position of each use-case pilot before the deployment and testing of ARXIVE tools and provides evidence to support Pilot Implementation (T5.2), tool development and integration under Annotated bibliography tools design and development (WP2), Cultural Heritage Object authoring tools design and development (WP3) and Integration and deployment with the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH) and other platforms (WP4), the Open Calls under Open Call Framework, publication and selection (T5.3) and training activities under Training materials development (T5.4). The BA combined a modular survey, completed by pilot institutions in July and August 2026 (M7–M8) and supported by sample material, with dedicated consultation and clarification sessions involving each pilot institution and the relevant technical partners in September 2026 (M9). The information collected was subsequently refined through follow-up meetings and written exchanges. The assessment shows different starting conditions at the pilot institutions. In Greece, NLG operates with a comparatively mature and standardised bibliographic data environment, supported by established international standards, export formats and persistent identifiers, and holds the required source material and expertise in-house. Its library management system (LMS), Koha, is institutionally hosted and offers several automated exchange routes, whereas its conservation records rely on local identifiers and case-by-case access. In Portugal, MDDS operates primarily as a post-field archaeological repository: it holds and manages the archaeological collections and documentation deposited with it, but part of this documentation is produced by external archaeological teams and may remain subject to scientific reservation, intellectual property rights (IPR) or other access conditions. Moreover, its collection management system (CMS), In Patrimonium, is provided under contract with MMP and hosted and controlled by an external supplier; neither MMP nor MDDS controls the hosting domain or the data model, so access to data for the pilot depends on structured exports rather than on direct system integration. Despite these differences, both use-case pilots share common needs: staff time for the human validation of machine-generated outputs is limited, key tasks depend on a small number of experienced staff, and training must fit short and largely remote formats. These conditions must be considered when designing the pilot activities. Based on this evidence, available at M10, an initial readiness level was assigned to each use-case pilot goal. As the evidence remains preliminary, these levels should be read as a baseline. In both use-case pilots, some goals are at a foundational readiness level, and MMP/MDDS also has one goal at an aspirational level. These goals require further decisions by the pilot institutions and technical partners before the first pilot iteration, notably on the theme, source material and validation of the enriched narratives and the capture and digitisation methods for tool impressions and watermarks at NLG, and on the In Patrimonium data exports, the dissemination route for enriched outputs and the approach to goal 1 at MMP/MDDS. The outcome of these decisions, the resolution of remaining open questions and the achievement of the pilot goals will be reported in the deliverable Pilot Implementation Report (D5.2), due in M26.