Dear Trevor,
Many thanks for your response, and for your suggested additions.
The Local Authority IT problem is one of the great intractables in this area, and it is not for want of trying that it remains such a constraint. Approaches to the Local Government Association, the Society of IT Managers and to those in charge of Local Authority performance have all so far failed.
It is a problem uniquely (in my experience) immune to national action. Ultimately, the devolved nature of decision-making about technology in Councils makes it nigh on impossible to articulate compelling national arguments on this point. It is a minor miracle that the Peoples Network happened at all in Public Libraries, and even then it did so in different ways in different Authorities.
The problem is only partly one of information security and policy. Behind this are some deeply-held beliefs about branding and the marketing of the Authority and all its services as a unified offer. Of course, this is not universally true - there are many good stories of positive and constructive relationships with LA IT managers, but in general it is certainly true that Councillor's perceptions of the nature of museums have failed to keep pace with our emerging online persona.
If recent press reports are to be believed about the fact that Authorities are targeting museums for a night of the long knives (http://www.lgcplus.com/finance/efficiency/museums-top-councillors-hit-list/5006526.article) then one possible answer is that if they want museums to be more creative, innovative and reach more people they should emancipate them from the constraints of a 3rd-level set of web pages buried in the Local Authority website.
On eHive, I couldn't agree more. If you are interested, Paul Rowe, CEO of eHive and architect of the NZMuseums project will be speaking at our session at the MA Conference on Aggregation for Museums (Tuesday 6th October).
Best regards,
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of REYNOLDS, Trevor
Sent: 29 September 2009 20:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Statement from MLA concerning the Digital agenda
I can't say there is anything worng with anything on the lists (although some of them make me twitch nervously) there are however key things missing:
Encouraging and supporting a culture of innovation and risk taking in local authority IT departments
Supporting the development of low cost, easy to use solutions for the volunteer run sector
Local authority IT departments provide the IT services for most of the libraries and archives that the MLA care about and for a good chunk of the museums. For good reasons they tend to be risk adverse (applications like voter registration, housing benefits and council tax payments require that approach). Providing training and funding to the IT professionals and IT strategy makers in Local Authorities (and indeed organisations like English Heritage) so that they can understand the reasons why museums, libraries and archives can benefit from a risk taking approach is key to the development of digital services for the sector.
For the latter see as an example http://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/ and the related ehive product. The many small volunteer run organisations need products that are, cheap, straight forward to use, are not dependant on the expertise of particular individuals, and do not force them to change their mission to follow any particular government agenda.
As an aside I a great fan of ehive. For the South Georgia Museum http://ehive.com/account/3408 it allows them to have access to their collections database at the museum in the Antarctic and and at their head office in Aberdeen. For the Tolkien Society http://ehive.com/account/3437 it allows us to distribute the cataloguing of artefacts between many volunteers all working in their own homes without the need for expensive software licences.
Trevor Reynolds, Registrar
English Heritage, 37 Tanner Row, York, YO1 6WP
+44 (0) 1904 601905
________________________________________
From: Museums Computer Group [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nick Poole [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 29 September 2009 17:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Statement from MLA concerning the Digital agenda
Dear MCG'ers,
Forgive the intrusion into your working day, but I thought that some of you would be interested to know that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) has published a new set of web pages highlighting its policy for the Digital agenda in libraries, archives and museums. There's also a set of documents showing how they are working with the Collections Trust, Culture24 and UKOLN to take this policy forward. The pages are at:
http://www.mla.gov.uk/what/programmes/digital
I'd particularly commend to your attention the following set of priorities for MLA, and both I and they would welcome your thoughts and comments on them.
MLA's role is to provide strategic leadership to the sector in relation to the digital agenda through:
* Developing a vision for the sector's use of digital technologies
* Supporting and promoting the development of quality standards
* Encouraging innovation to enable inclusion of all communities
* Promoting understanding and skills development
* Facilitating partnership work to add value and avoid duplication.
MLA has commissioned digital services from a number of organisations to help to deliver:
* More and better quality information on cultural opportunities to the public
* A coherent portal for cultural resources for teachers and learners
* Greater interaction with individuals and communities through use of Web 2.0 and social networking tools
* High quality standards in the management and preservation of digital resources
There is some excellent policy information, particularly around the impact of Social Media for museums in their strategy document Leading Museums:
http://www.mla.gov.uk/what/strategies/~/media/Files/pdf/2009/MLA_Museum_ActionPlan_final
While I am writing, I'd also like to invite list members to participate in the discussion about the appropriate role for DCMS in the Digital Agenda, on the OpenCulture blog at:
http://openculture.collectionstrustblogs.org.uk/2009/08/26/what-role-for-dcms-in-the-digital-agenda/
Best regards,
Nick
Nick Poole
Chief Executive
Collections Trust
Follow the Collections Trust on Twitter: http://twitter.com/collectiontrust
The new BSI/Collections Trust Code of Practice for Cultural Collections Management and the accompanying Collections Management: A Practical Guide are now available via Collections Link - http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/news/004912.html
Registered offices: 22 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 1JP
Registered Charity no. 273984
Company Registration No: 1300565
Telephone (switchboard): 01223 316 028
www.collectionstrust.org.uk
www.collectionslink.org.uk
www.culturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk
www.discs-uk.info
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