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Subject:

Re: 21st Century digital curation

From:

Kate Fernie <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Fri, 2 May 2008 10:30:38 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

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text/plain (196 lines)

Hi Nick, all

I share Jerry's and Janet's frustration, as there are a large number of
collections still online that initially received funding from the
NOF-digi programme.  Over the last few years in the MICHAEL project we
have revisited the collections and updated the records - see:

http://www.michael-culture.org.uk/mpf/pub-uk/query-list?base=project&fie
ld=ffundingsource&targetpage=results_pg.html&val=NOF-digi&from1=listProg
&search=Go 

In some cases we had to track down the NOF-funded resources to new host
websites as the original websites has disappeared, some have gone
offline.  But in many cases we found that the original collection of
digital material has grown as a result of funding from other sources -
often from the institutions themselves but also through other funding
bodies.  

We haven't just been revisiting the NOF-digi projects, so far the
MICHAEL project has identified 1,200 digital collections in the UK - far
more than were created through the NOF-digi programme alone. There is an
increasingly rich body of digital content becoming available from
cultural institutions - museums, libraries, archives, film archives,
audio visual archives, individual researchers.

The work on the People's Network Discover Service
(http://www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk/discover/showAdvancedSearchPage.do)
has demonstrated that we can offer searches across these collections...
given the funding and collective willingness.  There are other similar
approaches being demonstrated in France and Germany, and in development
for the Europeana portal.  No doubt as technology advances, new ways of
aggregating content to build critical mass will emerge.

Are we assuming that critical mass on its own will attract big audiences
for our content?  This approach seems to work for Google and Microsoft
(digitise lots of books, bring lots of users to your portal).  But does
this sustainability model work for the culture sector?  We know for
example that teachers do value small granular thematic resources.  

Kate
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
Kate Fernie
ICT Adviser (EU Projects)
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
http://www.mla.gov.uk/
http://www.michael-culture.org.uk/ 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Nick Poole
Sent: 02 May 2008 09:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 21st Century digital curation

Hi Jerry,

NOF-digi is widely regarded in political and funding circles as having
broadly failed. There are several reasons for this, but primarily that
the success criteria were never clearly articulated. There was a
loosely-defined conception in the minds of funders I spoke to that
NOF-digi would both 'solve the problem' by enabling large amount of
material to be digitised and 'engage the public' by putting in on the
web. There were also expectations that the process would raise both
skills and standards in the workforce, and help to investigate models
for sustainability for cultural content.

Things started to break down very early in the NOF-digi process when it
became apparent that it was sponsoring the proliferation of very
small-scale/niche online services with considerable duplication - hence
the matchmaking exercise which happened about halfway through, and which
led to the creation of a number of uneasy alliances.

The real chagrin for funders now comes from the relative inaccessibility
of the content which was funded. Although you are right that there are a
very few good services extant, a significant majority are dead, or
moribund, or sitting on discs in curator's drawers.

One issue is that this kind of mass-digitisation (pace Gunther) leads to
very diffuse impacts - it is difficult for a funder to survey the scene
and easily recognise the impact they have had on the landscape - as
funders usually like to do. This, again, is one reason why the Enrich-UK
portal was created almost as a means of reverse-engineering collective
impact for the process as a whole.

This view, however, misses some critical points. Our industry could
never have got so much better at technology had NOF-digi (and the IT
Challenge Fund before it) not happened. We learnt so much and developed
standards like the NOF-digi technical standards (now adopted, as David
Dawson says, throughout Europe as the MINERVA standards). We learnt
about copyright and licensing, we learnt that creating the content
doesn't lead to sustainability. It was, in short, a huge and well-funded
period of research and development for our industry and one which I
think enabled us to move to the point we're at now.

The real pity of it, to me, is that the reviled Culture Online chose to
ignore the lessons of NOF-digi and instead went down the commissioning
route using expertise predominantly from outside the sector. The impact
of NOF-digi is, at least, still being felt in some ways. Where is
Culture Online (or its tendril Projects Etc) now?

Nick

Nick Poole
Chief Executive
Collections Trust

www.collectionstrust.org.uk
www.collectionslink.org.uk
www.cuturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk


Tel:  01223 316028
Fax:  01223 364658


Until the end of April 2008, the Collections Trust's legal trading name
is: MDA (Europe) Ltd
Company Registration No: 1300565
Reg. Office: 22 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 1JP.

The Collections Trust believes that everybody, everywhere should have
the right to access and benefit from cultural collections. Our aim is to
develop programmes and standards which help connect people and culture.

The Collections Trust was launched from its predecessor body, the MDA,
in March 2008.

-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Jerry Weber
Sent: 02 May 2008 08:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 21st Century digital curation

I also attended the session in London and was quite surprised to hear
the
criticism of NOF-digi.  It is fair to say that the funding produced
mixed
results.  I felt at the time that there could have been more agreement
on
protocols for standards and perhaps more insistence on robust metadata.
However, there are some good examples of fully searchable collections
that
came out of NOF-digi - try
http://www.windowsonwarwickshire.org.uk/default.asp

Best wishes

Jerry


Jerry Weber
[log in to unmask]
0796 1594401

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