Towards a Safeguarding Concept of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Slavonia, Baranya and Syrmia – Aspects of Digitization, Processing, Conservation and Dissemination of Sound, Image and Shape

This paper is aimed at defining the concept of intangible cultural heritage in the context of safeguarding of speeches, customs, historical and traditional cultural assets of Slavonia, Baranya and Syrmia. Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Croatia is endangered and it is becoming extinct due to the influence of a number of factors. Since the formulation of the 1999 Act on the Protection and Preservation of Cultural Goods, intangible cultural heritage has been under special protection as goods of interest to the Republic of Croatia and 85 items have been listed as intangible cultural heritage in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia so far. Intangible cultural heritage is the subject of scientific research, as well as a part of the tourist offer (knitting fishing nets, reconstruction of customs), and some craft activities (pottery, lace making, apiculture). However, the issues related to the sustainable development of intangible cultural heritage are numerous, the most important being the disorganized and insufficient documentation of intangible assets and dispersion of the collected documentation. This paper sets out to highlight the ways modern technology and scientific research can cooperate in the processing of intangible cultural assets, which seems to be the best and safest option for permanent preservation of intangible cultural heritage in its broadest sense. The preservation of intangible cultural heritage is regarded in this paper at four basic levels: the collection (digitization of data), the processing of data to the level of information, proper storage of data and information processed and the dissemination to final users. The vital step towards the realization of the goals is to gather all accessible data using modern technical tools and techniques. In the era of cloud computing and distributed data storage, it is necessary to provide sufficient data redundancy for permanent preservation, especially if such valuable information is in question. As an ultimate goal, it is necessary to disseminate the collected and preserved assets in a user-oriented manner, depending on the available and desired level of animation and technical knowledge of users