Do people like the term trifecta because it sounds interesting, or because
it means something? It's a betting term, to predict the first, second and
third places in a race or other event.

People like threes, I don't know why. Like the problematic 'triples' of RDF
data and the related issues people have in not understanding things like
linked data because it is so difficult for a normal person to get their head
around what it all actually means in practice. We become so wedded to
fulfilling category components that the bigger picture gets lost--the kind
of bigger picture that Mike alluded to when talking about how the pre-post
online-in person museum visits actually work together (or not).

I'm about to embark on my second large-scale, cross-institution,
digitisation project, the first having taken place at that misty dawn time
of NOF-digi and fundamentally my own principles have not changed, although
the tools to fulfil them are infinitely better than they were 7-8 years ago
(well-described digital assets of a meaningful quality (sometimes too much
time can be spent creating a confection that few people are any more
interested in than a set of generous flickr-style images (no mean little
images and watermarks, no captions that read like flatpack component codes).
I struggled then with the balance of quality and quantity and still struggle
with the idea now. It's good to struggle with these ideas. It all depends on
what you want the whole thing to do, and what opportunity there is in the
future to expand, promote and sustain, and how you balance things like
researcher-level information and entry-level information: all this also
dependent on the subject areas of your collection. It is perfectly possible,
for example, to go for quantity at first, and then devote resources to
increasing quality, particularly in terms of descriptive and interpretive
information and contexts. Nowadays with supportive media such as blogs, you
can easily explain to people _what_ it is you are doing so you can 'manage
people's exceptions'. Alternatively, if digitisation is an integral part of
collections management or museum policy, you can choose the slow-burn and
turn out out a steady stream of digitised content based on selections from
actual exhibitions in-gallery (or online) or other kinds of demand
(like anniversary and event bandwagons). I'd like to know, for example, how
many museums prioritise the digitisation of their handling collections?

Overall, though, quality must stand out first in the race. All good
documentation people know that the values of objects diminish hugely if the
information about them, where they came from, interesting places they've
been, has disappeared. This is what museums do, and what good online
collections do as well. People do go to museums to have their attention
diverted for a while, whether that is to Learn, or just to be curious, or
immerse in beauty, or be titillated doesn't really matter. Most of us can't
really explain what exactly it is that pricks our attention, what matters is
is that our attention has been commanded. If you can also manage that with
digital content, you're onto a winner. Measuring it is of course, another
matter.

Tehmina



On 12 August 2010 15:05, Paul Groves <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Birchall, Danny
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Mia wrote
>
> >
> >>> There's no one, definitive "museum experience", online or offline.
> >>> The answer to "why would you want an entire collection online" might
> > range
> >>> from "well, I wouldn't" if you asked a teacher who just wants the
> > hero objects
> >>> he can use to teach a class on the industrial revolution to "because
> > I can't
> >>> afford the travel to access archives in person" if you asked someone
> >>> researching the history of an institution or area.
> >
> > Can't argue with that. I have a different experience in every museum I
> > go to.
>
> A more achievable aim for (some) museums might be to try to get all,
> or a good part of, their "on display" (i.e. in the physical galleries)
> objects online. These are likely to represent the most significant
> parts of their collections, and also should in theory have a
> reasonable amount of existing documentation/interpretation work
> already done. They could also act as a resource for visitors who want
> to find out more about a gallery/exhibition/object before *or* after
> they've visited the museum and/or to see more detail (if object
> photography of a sufficient resolution is made available online) of
> the object than they can in the physical galleries. On the flip side,
> the web also provides an opportunity to provide access to the parts of
> the collection that can not be seen on display in the physical
> galleries...
>
> There will *always* have to be a choice between quality/quantity to a
> certain extent when putting museum collections online, though one
> option might be to to have one part of the online collection (e.g. "on
> display" objects) documented/interpreted/photographed to a high
> degree, and the rest to go up with minimal and/or unchecked
> information and with less/poorer quality or even no photography
> (though a photograph always helps alot, I think, even if its not a
> great one) for researchers etc., as long as a clear distinction is
> made between the two types of online records (though ideally you
> should be able to search across both). The downside to this approach,
> of course, is that any resources spent on the other aspect will of
> necessity usually mean less resources available for the other, so may
> dilute the impact of focusing solely on one strategy.
>
> >>> I think the trifecta is the author's idea of the things
> >>> that together comprise usability for an online collection - but the
> >>> quality of the user experience always depends on who the user is,
> >>> and you can't define 'most useful' without knowing what their current
> > task is.
> >
> > It was the three particular elements of the trifecta I was interested in
> > understanding & expanding on
> >
> > -- "navigational ease" into which we can read usability, accessibility
> > and even linked data
> > -- "resolution" which we can take to mean an adequate, good-quality
> > digital object
> > -- "information" which we can understand as textual interpretation and
> > context, from within and without the museum
>
> I hope this isn't seen as a shameless plug, but how would MCG-ers rate
> the website for Eastern Art Online (the project I'm currently working
> on) for this " trifecta"?:
> http://www.jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/
> e.g. of an object record:
> http://www.jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/object/EA2009.2
> or an object in the context of an interpretive "Collection Trail":
> http://jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/collection/6/659/666/773
>
> We're always looking at ways to improve the site, which aims to make
> the Eastern Art collections at the Ashmolean Museum available online.
> The content currently mostly focuses on the objects and themes
> featured in the new (physical) galleries for the Islamic and Asian Art
> collections, most of which are now online, though there is an ongoing
> programme to make more objects available in the online collection over
> time.
>
> Our aim for this Eastern Art Online was definitely to prioritise
> quality, not just for the level and accuracy of object documentation,
> but also for the photography (all objects have at least one
> high-resolution zoom-able image, and most 3D objects have photographs
> of different object views) and for the usability and visual appeal of
> the site, aspects which I think are equally important for many users.
> The downside of this is that we haven't been able to put tens of
> thousands of objects online (yet), as, of course, providing this level
> of quality does take time and money...
>
> We'd also like to open up the collection to other means of access and
> are currently researching some of the possibilities here (I've been
> following the recent OAI-PMH discussion with much interest!)
>
> > Is there anything else to aim for? Aren't everyone's needs some kind of
> > mixture of these? Is 'completeness' (ie some kind of representation of
> > everything the museum owns/cares for) a missing element?
>
> Possibly, but aiming for "completeness" at the same time as trying to
> provide a rich level of information and photography for each object is
> likely to be an impossible objective for all but the smallest museums
>
> > I'm interested, because I think all museums' collections online are
> > generally understood to be somewhere on the spectrum between the online
> > catalogue (the 'raw') and the online exhibition (the 'cooked'). Does
> > this trifecta of values only apply to the cooked? (are innovations in
> > browseable catalogues, facet search etc, 'navigational ease'?).
>
> I think so, anything that helps the user to find what they are looking
> for has got to be a good thing
>
> > Should
> > we be aiming to produce online catalogues that satisfy each point of the
> > trifecta (or should we be enabling application builders to build
> > satisfactory applications on top of the catalogues)?
>
> Or do both - I think Museums will always want to have their "own"
> online collection website(s), for a number of, mostly quite valid,
> reasons (*context*, marketing, prestige, donor obligations, to give a
> sense of "authoritativeness" etc.), but the data and images that drive
> these could also be used via APIs/OAI-PMH etc.. to open up the
> collections to other means of access, at potentially relatively little
> additional cost, *if* technological hurdles can be overcome. The
> hard/expensive, but important, bit is getting the underlying data and
> other resources (photography etc.) "right" - however doing this opens
> up lots of opportunities for doing other things with that data.
>
> regards
>
> Paul
>
> --
> Paul Groves
> Project Manager
> Eastern Art Online; Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art
>
> Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology
> University of Oxford
> Beaumont Street
> Oxford OX1 2PH
>
> W: jameelcentre.ashmolean.org
>
> E: [log in to unmask]
> T: +44 (0)1865 278 289
>
> Skype: pgroves999
> Twitter: @paul_gr0ves
>
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--
Dr Tehmina Goskar, MA AMA
[log in to unmask]

Visiting Fellow, School of Humanities, University of Southampton
Historical and Museum Research
Web Communication and Learning Development

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