Last comment on this thread, I promise, before I go off and find a pub to buy Mike that pint in...
It feels to me like the discussion has reached a really important point by positing the question of what all this lovely collections data/content publishing is for. If, as Trevor has eloquently pointed out, we can't articulate clear bottom-line value for our museums or their users, then we're barking up the wrong tree. Thankfully - I don't think we are.
I suspect that this may not be the most earth-shattering revelation in the world - but it seems to me that there are two very broadly-defined use cases here:
1. We publish linked open data about collections as a research tool - both for ourselves internally and for the formal academic/learning community - in order to amplify our knowledge about our collections and;
2. We publish rich narrative content and media, some of which draw on collections information, as the basis of end-user experiences.
Where I disagree with Trevor is that the answer to the question about whether these two sets of activity deliver clear financial value is 'no'.
I think it is useful to look to the commercial publishing sector for inspiration here. In publishing, the 'Create Once, Public Everywhere' (COPE) model, and the systems integration and semantic enrichment required to deliver it represent a clear financial investment with a clear financial return. By making the publishing supply-chain more flexible, it makes it more cost-effective, more future-proof and better able to fulfil the requirements of a complex ecosystem of different consumer devices and platforms.
In publishing, COPE is seen as being good for business - both in terms of creating repurposable metadata, which can travel across many different consumer platforms to drive transactions back to the publisher, and in terms of delivering content and media that can be adapted to different delivery models.
Look, too, at the ways that journalism and broadcast are adopting COPE-based strategies to meet the demands of an increasingly complex and agile environment.
I really think that these benefits play out in a very similar way in museums.
'Will opening up our collections information as open data increase footfall?' - Yes, because more people will stand a chance of finding it, and by association of finding out about your museum if your content is embedded in platforms and services which they find interesting (especially if they are not habitual museum visitors);
'Will opening up collections information increase revenue on image licensing?' - Yes, the evidence is not conclusive, but there is enough compelling evidence that increased visibility of your collections leads to increased trade to suggest that this work.
'Will I recoup our investment in opening up our data?' - Yes, because there's a direct saving to be had on cataloguing costs and an indirect benefit to be had in terms of long-term flexibility and cost-savings on the long-term migration path for our systems.
If the person you're talking to is not comfortable talking about metadata, then talk to them about marketing, audience engagement, and long term efficiency savings on their IT systems.
So yes - I think open data is good for your museum's business (in whatever sense you understand the word), and can be clearly articulated as such.
That's it from me! Great discussion. Have a good weekend,
Nick
Nick Poole
Chief Executive Officer
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of REYNOLDS, Trevor
Sent: 05 April 2013 11:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: New blog on Collections Link - Create Once, Publish Everywhere & ResearchSpace
>>On Behalf Of Nick Poole
>> it really comes down to whether your organisation has embraced the marketing, engagement and professional (internally and externally) benefit of being open.
I must admit it still seems to me that the main argument is "its a good thing" and that hasn't won funding/resourcing arguments here for a long time.
In a situation where our government funding has been cut by 35% over the last three years and our targets include covering operating costs (for our collections at least) through earned income. The questions that I will be asked are "will this bring more people to our sites?" (and in particular the sites where we charge and entry fee), "will this incease sales of our images and publications?" and "will it reduce our operating costs?". At the moment in terms of collections information the answers are "no", "no" and "it may even incease them" (e.g. IT support for new systems).
There are arguments like increasing use of our stored collections by researchers which will be listened to sympathetically but they won't get treated with priority against projects which can answer yes to one or more of those questions.
>>on behalf of; Mike Ellis
>> rather than - for instance - media files, promotional material, exhibition dates, etc.
If you ask the same questions about opening hours and events the answers become "yes", "possibly" and "probably".
Slightly off topic but a related issue in my world is commercial licencing/use. At the moment this generates non-trivial amounts of income e.g. http://www.littlegreene.com/paint/collection/colours-of-england (paint), http://www.littlegreene.com/wallpaper/collection/london-wallpapers (wallpaper), and beds http://www.andsotobed.co.uk/beds/wooden-beds/natural-finish/brodsworth-bed-in-sienna-mahogany-2.html. Any suggestion that information about our collections is licenced to commercial organisations without us getting a cut is unlikely to get much support.
In practice I find that COPE as a strategy is wonderful in theory but breaks down in practice. Here the curators (and conservators) create most of the data, and as we move towards making our collections data available on line the curators want to re-write descriptions and notes for the intended audience (up till now they have understood the audience of the Collections Management System to be internal colleagues). The same is true of exhibition labels and panels: the label for a painting when it is in an exhibition on slavery will not be the same as when it is in an exhibition on war in the country house. Although I am slowly persuading them to store the facts and the links in our Collections Management System, this is an extra overhead for them, they will have written a piece of coherent text and then need to separate out information about people, events and the object into different fields and authorities. While having that information available in the future will mean that they (or future colleagues) don't have to redo the research, there is no short cut way of generating a coherent piece of text for the next exhibition.
Trevor Reynolds
Collections Registrar, English Heritage
tel: +44 (0) 1904 601905. 37 Tanner Row, York, YO1 6WP
This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of English Heritage unless specifically stated. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system and notify the sender immediately. Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it. Any information sent to English Heritage may become publicly available.
Portico: your gateway to information on sites in the National Heritage Collection; have a look and tell us what you think.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/archives-and-collections/portico/
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