Think my previous mail on this may have disappeared into the ether, so here goes again!
From the Collections Trust's perspective:
The Culture Grid and Europeana are both essentially ad servers. They aggregate just enough metadata to perform the function of advertising the existence of a digital resource, with the main aim of leading the punter back to source via a URI.
We have been giving some thought recently to whether this approach needs to be complemented by some form of large-scale repository infrastructure for museums, fulfilling the same function as e-prints in the HE/FE sector. Certainly, it is easier to publish and resolve machine-readable data from a single large-scale repository than from 2,500+ individual systems. It is also, for example, better to handle issues like digital curation and preservation at scale, rather than duplicating preservation infrastructure and workflow in every single institution.
The difficulty is that many of the approaches we are discussing arguably operate best at aggregated scale, but museums have tended to act in a disaggregated/individualistic way. How would people feel, for example, if funders started asking you to lodge copies of all of your digital assets with a centralised repository for preservation, open access and serving as Linked Data?
What we are increasingly seeing is UK and EU funders regarding non-open data in the same way as they regard inaccessible collections in store - it represents a considerable sunk investment without a clear use case.
We have also seen the beginnings of a backlash against critical mass of data in favour of creating fewer assets that are more richly described and cotextualised with narrative. This is not the European model, which still favours quantity, but over here, I think we have learned that breadth is relatively pointless without depth and reach. We are likely to see in the coming years a strengthening of the 'digitise less, describe better, share with web-scale partners' argument, replacing the research-led priority to pursue breadth of coverage of collections.
So, to answer the question - I think the open data principle has been adopted widely by stakeholders, but not by museums. I think museums need to win this argument with themselves if we are to move forward!
All best,
Nick
Nick Poole, Chief Executive, Collections Trust
-----Original Message-----
From: Ridge Mia <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:38:52
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Open data / content
Mike Ellis wrote:
> Have museums won the open data argument with their stakeholders? (and
I
> guess the shadowy question behind that is "if not, why not?")
>
> Be interesting to hear of your experiences / thoughts..
Thanks Mike!
One of the points I'd made on twitter was that museums are probably at
least using machine-readable data, if not actually 'open' data, in their
internal or business-to-business systems - so hopefully the utility of
machine-readable data (web services, APIs, structured data) isn't in
question.
It's also been pointed out that 'drinking your own champagne' - using
your own web services and APIs in building institutional and partnership
projects - is a great way to provide a data service for the public
without much additional effort.
I suspect that the wider case for museums publishing open data - the
case that 'people will use it *and* the museum will benefit' still
hasn't been proven, or proven in the right ways and to the right people.
I'm even wondering whether 'publishing open data is the right thing to
do' is axiomatic among museum technologists.
So I'd also be interested to hear other people's experiences and
thoughts...
cheers, Mia
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