How to use the Inventory?
The European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture is a dynamic, interactive e-dictionary of pluralistic, inclusive cultural policies aiming at a social turn in cultural policy. It is an open-access database based on the results of the Horizon 2020 project INVENT (No. 870691), allowing a continual expansion and revision of entries and highlighting numerous issues related to culture and cultural policy. It is freely available to policymakers, researchers, cultural professionals, and interested citizens. It is a dynamic tool – rather than an inert ‘storage’ of various data – since it can and will be expanded with new analysis results. The content of the Inventory is interactive: through various combinations of the available data, it offers the tools for analysing visions, models, instruments, and indicators of cultural policy. It can serve as an empirical base and an inspiration for creating cultural policy at various levels (from the local to the European) and is suited to the various models of cultural policy found in European countries.
The Inventory contains the results (published articles, case studies, and research reports) of the research project European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture as a Basis for Inclusive Cultural Policies in the Globalizing World (INVENT). It encompasses analyses of the societal values that cultural policy measures can produce, concepts through which cultural policy epitomises these values, instruments that can be used in this endeavour, and indicators to evaluate achievements. In addition, there are links to several hundreds of articles, books, research reports, video recordings of public lectures, and various audio recordings, written and spoken by fellow researchers worldwide. Further links will constantly be made available, including those to national, EU, and international databases, research institutions and teams as well as to other digitally accessible sources dealing with issues related to the societal value of culture. Such a platform can serve as a reference point for interested EU citizens, researchers, and cultural policymakers alike, enabling the creation and further dissemination of instruments and measures that promote active citizenship and participation, identity and belonging, inclusiveness, tolerance, and social cohesion.
The structure of the European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture is inspired by literary works Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar and Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić, novels that can be read in many different ways. A visitor to the European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture can also wander through it in multiple directions.
The Inventory can be entered through ‘the gateway’ of one of the nine societal values of culture present in the EU and national cultural policy documents (diversity, inclusion, participation, well-being, tolerance, solidarity, equality, identity, and creativity). These entries for these values are placed at the centre of the home page. The visitor can then proceed to read about the concepts through which these values were exemplified in cultural policy, the instruments used to achieve them, or indicators to measure these achievements. Alternatively, the Inventory can be entered through the gateway of one of the four megatrends influencing contemporary cultural policy (globalisation, digitalisation, rising social inequalities, and the growing multiplicity of notions of culture), located at the corners of the home page. From there, a visitor can continue to search for the topics s/he is interested in.
The European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture can be searched in many ways. We recommend starting with the ‘Search’ option, located in the upper right corner of the home page. A visitor can search for whatever notion of cultural policy s/he has in mind. One way to explore the Inventory is to search for results related to the main societal values presented in it, like, for example, ‘Participation’. Those interested in creating participatory cultural policy, studying participation, or simply wanting to know more about how active citizenship expresses itself in culture will get a list of items related to participation. This list will not include just those items present in the ‘participation’ gateway to the Inventory, but all items, articles, books, reports of research results, video screenings of public lectures, audio recordings related to participation from all corners of the Inventor. However, one can also search for notions that are not presented as separate entries on the home page, such as, for example, ‘cultural value’, ‘cultural institutions’, ‘artists’, ‘audience’, ‘co-creation’, ‘digital divide’, ‘precarity’, and others.
Then, there are also two types of ‘directed search’. One of them is related to the ‘Search’ option. A visitor to the Inventory can choose not to search for all types of documents in all parts of the e-dictionary / web site/ platform but instead limit the search to particular values, one of the megatrends influencing culture, specific formats (audio, video, text), or types of entries (concepts, instruments, indicators). All these options are available on the screen once one presses the Search sign. The other type of ‘directed search’ is to follow our suggestions on what should be read, watched, or listened to next. Below some entries is the sign ‘see also’, which can guide those focused on specific topics and problems in cultural policy.
Finally, there is an option for a visitor to wander freely through the Inventory. It is possible to use any gateway (values or megatrends) and then follow one’s interests or intuitions. If one gets lost, there is always a possibility to return to the home page by pressing the title European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture at the top left corner of the screen. Or, alternatively, one can press the navigation sign at the top right corner (next to the Search sign), which offers the possibility to move from one value-gateway to another, from values to megatrends and vice versa.
Editorial work: Predrag Cvetičanin, Mirko Petrić, Inga Tomić-Koludrović, Miloš Jovanović, Višnja Kisić and Goran Tomka
The entries have been written by members of the European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture as a Basis for Inclusive Cultural Policies in the Globalizing World (INVENT) team (in alphabetical order): Predrag Cvetičanin (PC), Danijela Gavrilović (DG), Larissa Fritsch (LF), Riie Heikkila (RH), Sylvia Hola (SH), Susanne Janssen (SJ), Tally Katz-Gerro (TKG), Višnja Kisić (VK), Nemanja Krstić (NK), Frédéric Lebaron (FL), Jordi López-Sintas (JLS), Miloš Jovanović (MJ), Franziska Marquart (FM), Eva Myrczik (EM), Mirko Petrić (MP), Valentina Petrović (VP), Jörg Rössel (JR), Marija Stefanović (MS), Inga Tomić-Koludrović (ITK), Goran Tomka (GT), Dea Vidović (DV), Simon Walo (SW), and Neta Yodovich (NY).
Software development: Slobodna domena, open source and design cooperative https://slobodnadomena.hr/