All,

Further to this, at a DCMS Seminar on collections (part of their 'Understanding the Future' 
work), there was a discussion about Sustainability, which had been identified by the 
Museums Association as a Priority. 

The debate boiled down to 'does Sustainability mean environmental sustainability, or are we 
talking in a UNESCO sense about sustainable development.' 

This strikes me as a key distinction, and it does tend to get a bit fudged (I know, I know, the 
one has an impact on the other, but not a big enough one to be important for the sake of this 
discussion).

If we are talking about the environmental impact specifically of digital publishing by 
museums, then I would argue that this is offset by several orders of magnitude by the mostly 
tedious and tangential blogosphere. If we're talking about personal choices, preventing 
unnecessary blogging would probably be up there at number one on my list.

If we are talking about sustaining the digital community, then there is a whole different set of 
questions to be addressed. These are to do with evidence, qualitative and quantitative, of 
what those digital services genuinely bring to the user. In a world in which I am increasingly 
asked to justify costs-per-user, I find I lack even the most basic statistically valid and 
consistent evidence of the impact of 10 years of investment. 

In a way, this is linked to my previous argument about the need to understand better what 
people want from us and then deliver more targeted services. The best analogy I can think of 
with collections databases is that a shotgun is an inherently wasteful, messy and damaging 
way of shooting something. 

Nick 




On 14 Feb 2007 at 12:04, Jon Pratty wrote:

> Jeremy, Nick, Matthew et al
> 
> Jeremy
> 
> Of course - it's obvious Matthew's points are not in the same arena
> of
> green-ness as those I'm pointing out. That's the core of my point,
> which
> I think I'd made clearly. 
> 
> Naturally we must not "lose sight of the fact that this literal
> green
> concern is the responsibility of the cultural sector as much as
> anyone."
> I'd be the first to agree that we all have a responsibility to
> consider
> our footprint in the world - that's not my contention. 
> 
> Matthew's post is a key question (and I'm sure this thread'll now
> expand
> like crazy) but for me the big issues facing us are not just
> around
> having technological efficiency but more importantly, how we grow
> and
> sustain the cultural digital community.
> 
> The keen interest that followed Nick Poole's excellent speech to
> the
> MCG's autumn meeting at the NHM shows that there are plenty in the
> sector who agree we need to do more about sustainability and
> digital
> cultural provision for all.
> 
> Jon
> 
> Jon Pratty
> Editor
>  
> [log in to unmask]
> 01273 623336 (direct)
> 01273 623266 (main office number)
> 07739 287392 (mobile)
>  
> The 24 Hour Museum
> Your best guide to museums, galleries, arts and heritage
> www.24hourmuseum.org.uk 
>  
> www.show.me.uk - great stuff for kids from UK museums and
> galleries
>  
> Office 4 
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> Brighton 
> BN1 4AJ
>  
> Winner, Best of the Web award, Museums and the Web 2004
> New Statesman New Media Awards 2002, 2005
> 
>         
> 
>               
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of
> Ottevanger, Jeremy
> Sent: 14 February 2007 11:35
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: A greener internet?
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> A very interesting, relevant topic. 
> 
> Jon, I'm personally very appreciative of your thoughts below for
> reasons
> you'll well understand, but I have to say I don't think they are in
> the
> same arena as the green-ness that Matthew was talking about. Just
> because ecology and economy both employ the term "sustainable"
> doesn't
> mean they are talking about the same thing, and just because you
> talk
> about "the ecology of the internet" doesn't mean that the two
> distinct
> meanings you could understand for that term become
> interchangeable.
> Sustainability in the digital economy (broadly speaking) is not the
> same
> as sustainability in natural resources. That's no reason not to
> expand
> the discussion from the "literal" issue, but let's not lose sight of
> the
> fact that this literal green concern is the responsibility of the
> cultural sector as much as anyone - and it's not news, as your own
> article indicates. 
> 
> On the subject of Matthew's initial query about the energy
> consumption
> of the Internet, I was recently talking to a friend engaged in
> planning
> for the energy needs of a large international bank's server farms
> and
> the figures were mind-boggling. The energy cost of a single
> processor
> quite soon exceeds the cost of the processor itself (IIRC) and
> certainly
> using multi-core processors can yield big savings, perhaps avoiding
> the
> need to build their own power station(!). I would suggest that a
> good
> way of overestimating the energetic cost of your own websites is to
> take
> your annual hosting costs and ask how much electricity that would
> buy.
> OK, you may buy a unit of juice at a different price from Easynet
> or
> whoever, but equally you are paying them for more than just the
> energy
> costs of hosting your site. Presumably some of the costs are passed
> on
> to other suppliers, perhaps providing access to the backbone, which
> will
> be charging for their energy costs too. My guess is that your
> annual
> cost would purchase much more energy than your sites use. If you
> are
> hosting fancy stuff rather than simple HTML your costs may be
> considerably higher, too, although the energetic costs of serving up
> the
> same quantity of pages may not be proportionately higher (though a
> bit).
> For our part, this calculation would suggest that serving up our
> web
> sites consumes (up to) several times the energy that my home uses
> each
> year. OK this is clearly nonsense, but it's a baseline to which we
> can
> compare, say, the financial and energetic cost of maintaining a
> gallery,
> a learning suite etc. If our virtual presences reduce the need for
> costly physical activities or facilities perhaps we can consider
> that
> some sort of offset? Although, given that we've spent quite a bit
> of
> effort over the last decade trying to show that we won't lose
> "real"
> visitors if we make it possible to experience some of what we
> offer
> remotely, it might not seem that attractive to have to argue that
> energy
> is saved by people that no longer have to come to our museums to
> get
> what they need...
> 
> And Jon, can I say again that your remarks on digital sustainability
> are
> nevertheless very interesting to me?
> 
> Cheers, Jeremy
> 
> 
> 
> Jeremy Ottevanger
> Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
> Museum of London Group
> 46 Eagle Wharf Road
> London. N1 7ED
> Tel: 020 7410 2207
> Fax: 020 7600 1058
> Email: [log in to unmask] www.museumoflondon.org.uk
> 
> Visit Belonging: Voices of London's Refugees - a new
> thought-provoking
> free exhibition
> 
> Glamour, grandeur, sleaze, disease  - discover a great city in the
> making at the Museum of London   -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of
> Jon Pratty
> Sent: 14 February 2007 10:32
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [MCG] A greener internet?
> 
> Matthew, Nick, Dan et al
> Matthew's email zeros in neatly on a point that's been one of my
> enthusiasms for a few years - the ecology of the internet - but it
> misses the point, if I may politely interject. 
>  
> For some time I've been concerned with the literal issues of
> 'green-ness' and technology. A while back I wrote about how the
> European
> WEEE regulations might mean the end of the line for the online
> retail
> tech industry -
> http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/analysis/2132031/industry-faces-toxic-s
> hock
> -2. If you look at the date on the article you'll see how little
> progress has been made in the last five years!
>  
> But more importantly I think it's the wider meanings of
> 'sustainability'
> that should concern us in the cultural sector, with the emphasis on
> how
> we work, how we fund that work, and how we plan and make strategies
> in
> the wider scheme of things.
>  
> For me, sustainability in the digital world means:
>  
> a) making sure we don't duplicate work being done elsewhere, or
> nearby,
> or by others better placed to do the work. 
> b) it means building sites in simple, easily maintainable open
> source
> cms that most can work on cheaply.
> c) It means trying to devise publishing models that can be
> sustained,
> developed and networked in ways that mean they thrive and bring
> benefits
> for all
> d) It means building digital cultural infrastructure that is
> widely
> supported, easily understood and brings connection to mass
> audiences
> (inwards and outwards) for every cultural venue.
> e) It means transferring the skills to publish simply to as many in
> the
> sector as possible
>  
> I think a better approach to internet ecology ought to make it
> possible
> for all cultural participators (small museums, galleries,
> libraries,
> archives, artists, community groups etc.) to expect digital
> representation as a fundamental right. 
>  
> These are the things we need to consider as 'green' issues for our
> sector, rather than carbon offsetting and so on. 
>  
>        
>  
> Jon Pratty
> Editor
>  
> [log in to unmask]
> 01273 623336 (direct)
> 01273 623266 (main office number)
> 07739 287392 (mobile)
>  
> The 24 Hour Museum
> Your best guide to museums, galleries, arts and heritage
> www.24hourmuseum.org.uk <http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/>  
>  
> www.show.me.uk <http://www.show.me.uk/>  - great stuff for kids from
> UK
> museums and galleries
>  
> Office 4
> 28 Kensington Street
> Brighton
> BN1 4AJ
>  
> Winner, Best of the Web award, Museums and the Web 2004 New
> Statesman
> New Media Awards 2002, 2005
>  
> 
> **************************************************
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> visit
> the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
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> the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
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Nick Poole
Director
MDA

The Spectrum Building
The Michael Young Centre
Purbeck Road
Cambridge
CB2 2PD

Telephone: 01223 415 760
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.mda.org.uk

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