Bridget
There were a number of other MLA sector Culture Online projects in addition to Every Object, including Icons and, of course, 24 Hour Museum's award-winning City Heritage Guides. CoL commissioned content for City Heritage Guides still lives on in the respective regional zones on Culture24.
Icons of England, another MLA sector CoL site, was set up by CoL themselves, via Cogapp, then published under contract by C24. That site is still live too.
Happy days (kind of)
Jon
Sent From My Blackberry Handheld.
----- Original Message -----
From: Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Mon Jun 27 15:13:00 2011
Subject: Re: MCG historical query - criticisms of Culture Online programme?
Hello
Good question.
I think Janet is right that there were no official reports
specifically criticising Culture Online as a funding model, and Wendy
is right that the Demos report
http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/loggingon which, though critical
in some ways, is overtly positive in its stance and didn't fully
penetrate the criticisms that were circulating unofficially.
I do recall reading a report or article that mentioned the short life
of the V&As Every Object Tells a Story, funded by Culture Online but
couldn't locate it. There may have been others. I may have written
critically about it myself in a few reports (e.g.
http://www.hlf.org.uk/aboutus/howwework/Documents/HLF_digital_review.pdf
)
but can't remember.
I'm not sure what the wider cultural sector thought of Culture Online,
but think that people/orgs involved in cultural programming (i.e. arts
& digital media) were more in favour and benefited more, than the
cultural collections/content/MLA sector. Because Culture Online was
led by people from a broadcast programming background there was a
drive to prove that culture online should be about creating cultural
engagements appropriate to the web, experimentally, rather than
replicating or digitising pre-existing culture. So, digitisation of
content was not funded by it, and also only one MLA sector project was
funded (Every Picture...). Because the commissioning process
engendered competitive bids and wasn't prefaced by strategic
negotiation with the MLA sector (and it predated the strong use of
online communities like this for sector discussion) we didn't use it
as an opportunity to advocate a sector response to their terms of
reference. This was prior to the thinking that is more prevalent now,
that digitised cultural content doesn't have to be locked into dull
online catalogues, that it can be an endless resource for creativity
and networked learning if we set it free.
In England, we now have a similar opportunity to Culture Online in the
NESTA/ACE Digital Innovations fund for the 'arts and cultural sector'.
Because ACE is now embracing MLA functions, this fund is a great
chance for an exploration of how digital innovation funds can connect
the programming of culture as suited to online and the creative
possibilities of remaking cultural archives online, and draw them
together into the best services for use & enjoyment.
Bridget
Quoting "Chan, Sebastian" <[log in to unmask]>:
> Hi all
>
> Back in the early 2000s there was a funding scheme in the UK called
> Culture Online that funded a lot of 'collaborations' (maybe better
> described as public/private partnerships) between digital agencies
> and the cultural sector.
>
> I seem to remember that there were a number of reports that were
> quite critical of the funding model, especially around the
> sustainability of the project outputs themselves (how many of those
> sites are still online now?) and also the sustainability of a sudden
> funding injection into the digital agencies (how many of those
> agencies got burned?).
>
> Anyway, I know that a lot of the older folk on the MCG list will
> have memories of this period and those projects and I seem to
> remember there being heated discussion of them on-list and
> importantly, some reports that were published.
>
> If you remember or better still have copies of any of these reports
> I'd really welcome a copy.
>
> Thanks
>
> Seb
>
>
> Sebastian Chan
> A/g Head of Digital, Social and Emerging Technologies
> Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia
> s - 500 Harris St Ultimo | p - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238
> t - +61 2 9217 0109 | m - +61 (0) 413 457 126
> e - [log in to unmask] | w - www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog
>
>
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