Collections Trust CEO Nick Poole was invited to address the @Europeanaeu event at Dublin Castle as part of the Irish Presidency of the EU. The full transcipt of his address is provided here:
http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/discover/new-perspectives/1946-allezc
Saturday, 22 June 2013
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Start the Week: Hari Kunzru and Dystopia - 17 June 2013
This episode focused on Hari Kunzru and his dystopian novella, Memory Palace, where books and the act of remembering have been banned. Jane Rogers explained how her apocalyptic tale may be set in the future but points to today's abuse of scientific knowledge and the heroism of youth. James Robertson spoke about his latest novel which explores grief, justice and the truth, and the photographer Adam Broomberg asked how far images of war capture the truth.
Google Cultural Institute: Steve Crossan - 18 June 2013
Google Cultural Institute (GCI) is based in Paris, and is a team largely made up of designers and software engineers (how does this feed into my study? As a form of institutional critique or as a study of the management of heritage resources?)
GCI ran the pilot Google Art Project two years ago. At this stage there were 17 art museums and galleries involved. The pilot threw up several questions, the foremost among them being, what can distinguish the digital object from the authentic object in a positive way? The project explored different lighting options in the museums (see Turning the Pages & 'Valery Proust Museum') and used street view technology to emulate the experience of walking around the building. A lot was learned from the project, although the GCI has subsequently gone in a different direction.
Moving away from the trend for taking very high quality images (the Louvre has a satellite imaging camera), Crossan suggested that the future of digitisation will be smartphone-based, where the sophistication lies in the software rather than the hardware.
GCI has now launched an exhibition facility, which represents the material of partner institutions in online exhibitions. This allows for the display and exploration of archive material. GCI operates the service on a hosting model, it doesn't make curatorial decisions and the rights to works remain with the partners (in cases where rights to contemporary artworks belong to artists it can still be problematic). The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory site is an example of this format. In reference to a mosaic thumbnail image style page, Crossan suggested that the layout can be difficult to access unless you know exactly what you're looking for (see Europeana's online exhibitions). There is a further question about how to engage audiences who won't necessarily seek out culture. The search engine model entails that content can only be provided if you know what you're looking for.
Crossan focused on the case study of the Yad Vashem Centre to explain how the digitisation of images and their accompanying text shed new light on unknown photographs and provided context for the histories of individuals that were victims of the Holocaust.
He then gave details of the progress of GCI since Google Art Project. It partners with 250 museums and galleries from 42 countries (encompassing both art and historical content). Beyond the online exhibitions of partner institutions, there is now a user gallery feature that can be taken up by anyone (prosumer?) There are currently 300,000 user galleries and counting. Although not intentionally designed for that purpose, the feature has been utilised by a number of secondary school teachers.
A lot of GCI's current investment is going into solving the metadata problem. They have developed a system for tagging items with Freebase elements, and are also investigating image-based search solutions (beyond metadata). Long-term plans include linking projects on different platforms by making content available through APIs. All this work (and the priorities of GCI generally) are oriented more towards digitisation than digital preservation.
The rationale for GCI? Crossan called it part of Google's Corporate Social Responsibility Programme (although they wouldn't describe it as such) - see http://www.google.org/, e.g. Public Health initiative. However the production of high quality content (which is not primarily English-language material) is good for the longevity of the web and thus, long-term, for Google. Incidentally, this is also why GCI isn't based in an English-language speaking country.
Steve Crossan will shortly be leaving his post as head of GCI. His email address is: stevie@google.com
N.B. See Versailles 3D for an example of GCI's 3D scanning effort.
GCI ran the pilot Google Art Project two years ago. At this stage there were 17 art museums and galleries involved. The pilot threw up several questions, the foremost among them being, what can distinguish the digital object from the authentic object in a positive way? The project explored different lighting options in the museums (see Turning the Pages & 'Valery Proust Museum') and used street view technology to emulate the experience of walking around the building. A lot was learned from the project, although the GCI has subsequently gone in a different direction.
Moving away from the trend for taking very high quality images (the Louvre has a satellite imaging camera), Crossan suggested that the future of digitisation will be smartphone-based, where the sophistication lies in the software rather than the hardware.
GCI has now launched an exhibition facility, which represents the material of partner institutions in online exhibitions. This allows for the display and exploration of archive material. GCI operates the service on a hosting model, it doesn't make curatorial decisions and the rights to works remain with the partners (in cases where rights to contemporary artworks belong to artists it can still be problematic). The Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory site is an example of this format. In reference to a mosaic thumbnail image style page, Crossan suggested that the layout can be difficult to access unless you know exactly what you're looking for (see Europeana's online exhibitions). There is a further question about how to engage audiences who won't necessarily seek out culture. The search engine model entails that content can only be provided if you know what you're looking for.
Crossan focused on the case study of the Yad Vashem Centre to explain how the digitisation of images and their accompanying text shed new light on unknown photographs and provided context for the histories of individuals that were victims of the Holocaust.
He then gave details of the progress of GCI since Google Art Project. It partners with 250 museums and galleries from 42 countries (encompassing both art and historical content). Beyond the online exhibitions of partner institutions, there is now a user gallery feature that can be taken up by anyone (prosumer?) There are currently 300,000 user galleries and counting. Although not intentionally designed for that purpose, the feature has been utilised by a number of secondary school teachers.
A lot of GCI's current investment is going into solving the metadata problem. They have developed a system for tagging items with Freebase elements, and are also investigating image-based search solutions (beyond metadata). Long-term plans include linking projects on different platforms by making content available through APIs. All this work (and the priorities of GCI generally) are oriented more towards digitisation than digital preservation.
The rationale for GCI? Crossan called it part of Google's Corporate Social Responsibility Programme (although they wouldn't describe it as such) - see http://www.google.org/, e.g. Public Health initiative. However the production of high quality content (which is not primarily English-language material) is good for the longevity of the web and thus, long-term, for Google. Incidentally, this is also why GCI isn't based in an English-language speaking country.
Steve Crossan will shortly be leaving his post as head of GCI. His email address is: stevie@google.com
N.B. See Versailles 3D for an example of GCI's 3D scanning effort.
Monday, 10 June 2013
British Library adds billions of webpages and tweets to archive
In a project led by the BL (launched April 2013), material on 1bn webpages from nearly 5m UK websites, plus public tweets and Facebook entries, are being preserved for the historical record at six libraries in the UK and Ireland.
The aim is to produce a digital record of events and cultural and intellectual works to match traditional print. See the full story here:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/05/british-library-archive-webpages-tweets
The aim is to produce a digital record of events and cultural and intellectual works to match traditional print. See the full story here:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/apr/05/british-library-archive-webpages-tweets
Friday, 7 June 2013
Show your support for #AllezCulture - The Campaign to Defend Europeana's EU Funding
Dear colleague,
I am writing to invite you to get involved in #AllezCulture, a new campaign to encourage the European Commission to commit to ongoing support for Europeana (www.europeana.eu) and its community of GLAMs across Europe under the current EU budget round.
Europeana is included under the 'CEF' funding programme, where it faces stiff competition from a range of agendas including e-Health, e-Justice and a Safer Internet. While these are all important causes, it is equally important that our community makes its voice heard to protect the past 5 years of investment in digital cultural programmes across Europe and to look ahead to new partnerships and opening up collections to new audiences.
Show your support for #AllezCulture by:
1. Tweeting your networks with the hashtag #AllezCulture to let
them know how Europeana and European partnerships have added value for
you and your organisation;
2. Downloading and sharing the #AllezCulture infographic with your
networks (can be downloaded/viewed here: http://researchkb.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/europeana-the-case-for-funding-tweet-allezculture/
3. Read the blog post about the case for support
<http://researchkb.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/europeana-the-case-for-fundi
ng-tweet-allezculture/> and blog/share with your own community your
views on how Europeana has impacted on your work, and why it is
important to continue to support collaboration between European GLAMs
4. Sending a message to @NeelieKroesEU (Vice Commissioner of the
European Commission) to let her know why Europeana deserves her support
5. Joining the Europeana Network and connecting with other people
involved in the #AllezCulture campaign across Europe - you can join
online at http://www.pro.europeana.eu/network/apply
6. Joining the Europeana Network LinkedIn group and sharing your
thoughts about how to make the case for investment in Europeana -
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4143376&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr
In the UK alone, Europeana-related initiatives have generated more than EUR 10m in new investment from Europe into the cultural industries over the past 3 years. Europeana has been a catalyst for new investment and new digital cultural programmes all over Europe. I hope you will join me in acting today to protect the value of what has been achieved so far, and to secure a sustainable future for Europeana and its work supporting Europe's GLAM sector.
With many thanks in advance for your support, and all best,
Nick Poole
Chief Executive Officer
Collections Trust
I am writing to invite you to get involved in #AllezCulture, a new campaign to encourage the European Commission to commit to ongoing support for Europeana (www.europeana.eu) and its community of GLAMs across Europe under the current EU budget round.
Europeana is included under the 'CEF' funding programme, where it faces stiff competition from a range of agendas including e-Health, e-Justice and a Safer Internet. While these are all important causes, it is equally important that our community makes its voice heard to protect the past 5 years of investment in digital cultural programmes across Europe and to look ahead to new partnerships and opening up collections to new audiences.
Show your support for #AllezCulture by:
1. Tweeting your networks with the hashtag #AllezCulture to let
them know how Europeana and European partnerships have added value for
you and your organisation;
2. Downloading and sharing the #AllezCulture infographic with your
networks (can be downloaded/viewed here: http://researchkb.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/europeana-the-case-for-funding-tweet-allezculture/
3. Read the blog post about the case for support
<http://researchkb.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/europeana-the-case-for-fundi
ng-tweet-allezculture/> and blog/share with your own community your
views on how Europeana has impacted on your work, and why it is
important to continue to support collaboration between European GLAMs
4. Sending a message to @NeelieKroesEU (Vice Commissioner of the
European Commission) to let her know why Europeana deserves her support
5. Joining the Europeana Network and connecting with other people
involved in the #AllezCulture campaign across Europe - you can join
online at http://www.pro.europeana.eu/network/apply
6. Joining the Europeana Network LinkedIn group and sharing your
thoughts about how to make the case for investment in Europeana -
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4143376&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr
In the UK alone, Europeana-related initiatives have generated more than EUR 10m in new investment from Europe into the cultural industries over the past 3 years. Europeana has been a catalyst for new investment and new digital cultural programmes all over Europe. I hope you will join me in acting today to protect the value of what has been achieved so far, and to secure a sustainable future for Europeana and its work supporting Europe's GLAM sector.
With many thanks in advance for your support, and all best,
Nick Poole
Chief Executive Officer
Collections Trust
The Commons Letter - Nick Poole
Last week we surveyed the commons network in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and triumphs experienced by individuals advancing the commons and commons solutions. In response, we heard from Nick Poole, chief executive of Collections Trust.
Collections Trust is an independent UK-based organization working with museums, libraries, galleries, and archives worldwide to improve the management of their Collections, a commons shared by us all. The work of Collections Trust “ensures that millions of people worldwide can continue to discover, enjoy, and learn from their history and knowledge and stories which bring it to life.”
Poole’s response to our inquiry about his effort to protect Collections was clear and insightful, and we are delighted to share it with our wider community.
— Jessica Conrad
A letter to On the Commons from Nick Poole:
I lead Collections Trust, a UK-based nonprofit organization working with around 23,000 museums, galleries, libraries, and archives across Europe. It is my firm belief that the principles, ethics, and spirit of the Commons lie at the heart of the public mission of the culture sector.
I have been working to promote the idea of a Cultural Commons for Europe—not only in the digital realm, but also by asserting that the millions of books, artifacts, and records in Europe’s cultural institutions belong to a commons of the world’s memory.
Through this work, I try to demonstrate that the Commons is not just an abstract set of ideas, but a very real and tangible means of building a lasting, scalable, transparent, and relevant culture sector for the 21st century.
But it has been a struggle to ignite this idea in my community. My main challenges include the following:
Although I’ve faced challenges, I’ve also discovered some successful solutions, including your Commons Framework. I also use a thought exercise where I ask people to imagine the difference between a piece of land that they own in common and one that is owned by a landlord. If you build on a piece of land that someone owns, the results of your labour are never yours. But if you build on, and care for, a piece of land that is held in common, then it is yours and everyone’s forever. This ought to be the primary purpose of a museum, archive, or library.
For more information about Collections Trust, you can visit their website at www.collectionstrust.org.uk. Email us at info[at]onthecommons.org to share your own challenges and triumphs in advancing the commons and commons solutions.
Collections Trust is an independent UK-based organization working with museums, libraries, galleries, and archives worldwide to improve the management of their Collections, a commons shared by us all. The work of Collections Trust “ensures that millions of people worldwide can continue to discover, enjoy, and learn from their history and knowledge and stories which bring it to life.”
Poole’s response to our inquiry about his effort to protect Collections was clear and insightful, and we are delighted to share it with our wider community.
— Jessica Conrad
A letter to On the Commons from Nick Poole:
I lead Collections Trust, a UK-based nonprofit organization working with around 23,000 museums, galleries, libraries, and archives across Europe. It is my firm belief that the principles, ethics, and spirit of the Commons lie at the heart of the public mission of the culture sector.
I have been working to promote the idea of a Cultural Commons for Europe—not only in the digital realm, but also by asserting that the millions of books, artifacts, and records in Europe’s cultural institutions belong to a commons of the world’s memory.
Through this work, I try to demonstrate that the Commons is not just an abstract set of ideas, but a very real and tangible means of building a lasting, scalable, transparent, and relevant culture sector for the 21st century.
But it has been a struggle to ignite this idea in my community. My main challenges include the following:
- Everyone sees the word “Commons” and thinks of the Creative Commons. They go straight to technology and copyright rather than human rights and shared responsibilities.
- The word “Commons” does not travel well. Countries without a well-established concept of common land find it harder to engage with than others.
- When you say you are trying to develop a Commons, everyone wants to see it. Where is it? Is it online? Can I go there? The concept is just too abstract for western scientific rationalists to easily grasp.
- People assume the Commons is anti-money, as opposed to anti-enclosure, so they assume they can’t afford it—particularly in a time of austerity. I try to demonstrate that the Commons can be the basis of a profoundly scalable business model, but examples are few and far between.
- Commons ≠ Communism. People think the Commons is a political statement, not a human one. I find that a lot of people opt out of the conversation because they think they’re getting involved in a fringe lobby group.
Although I’ve faced challenges, I’ve also discovered some successful solutions, including your Commons Framework. I also use a thought exercise where I ask people to imagine the difference between a piece of land that they own in common and one that is owned by a landlord. If you build on a piece of land that someone owns, the results of your labour are never yours. But if you build on, and care for, a piece of land that is held in common, then it is yours and everyone’s forever. This ought to be the primary purpose of a museum, archive, or library.
For more information about Collections Trust, you can visit their website at www.collectionstrust.org.uk. Email us at info[at]onthecommons.org to share your own challenges and triumphs in advancing the commons and commons solutions.
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