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
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Until the end of April 2008, the Collections Trust's legal trading name is: MDA (Europe) Ltd
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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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