Digital Library Services for Portable Antiquity and Shared Heritage concept and objectives are to provide a Digital Library Services System that allows specified ‘communities of practice’ such as museums and archaeological societies, local history groups, and metal detector clubs (individuals and organisations)on a large European scale to archive (by acquiring), share (by contributing) and use (by exploiting) their archaeological and historical data, knowledge, understanding and wisdom (through learning) in a safe, accountable and self-preserving way (through transparent migration of digital content to facilitate long term preservation).

DISPLAYS will implement a DISPLAYS User Group (DUG) composed of all stakeholders across many the heritage based portable antiquities communities of practice (archaeological, metal detector, history, rambler, etc.) who will develop and extend the innovative scenarios of use—already described in this proposal.  An initial core membership of the DUG will consist of stakeholder partners focused on archaeology and portable antiquities in the DISPLAYS consortium who will plan, coordinate and execute evaluation methodologies, user trials and a dissemination strategy that reaches out and educates the heritage access community. 

The University of Sussex is a leading research institution with strengths across a broad range of disciplines. Many of the faculty are academics of world renown, working at the cutting edge of their disciplines. The growth in the numbers of postgraduate applications and admissions to Sussex over recent years reflects the quality and excellence of the University. The Centre for VLSI and Computer Graphics conducts research in the design and development of advanced hardware and software systems for computer graphics, virtual reality, augmented reality and virtual prototyping.