Technological Landscapes for Tomorrow’s Cultural Economy (DIGICULT) Definitions - trends - hypotheses Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft m.b.H. Forschungsbereich Informationsgesellschaft
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INTRODUCTION
This document on ‘Definitions, trends and hypothesis’ has been prepared as discussion document for theSteering Committee and Consortium Meetings taking place in Vienna, April 2-3, 2001. It represents a firstapproach on narrowing the scope of the DigiCULT study by identifying the major issues memoryinstitutions in Europe face today.
This has been accomplished in a deductive approach, as shown below. CULTURAL Fact Finding Phase (WP 2) MEGATRENDS Financial Technology Exploitation Services & Policies Initiatives Organisational Working Hypothesis Research Questions Interview Guides for Expert Opinion Phase (WP 3) Interviews (one thematic issue) Expert Round (one thematic issue) Case Studies (several thematic Online Delphi (all thematic issues)
Based on desk research during the fact-finding phase, we formulated several cultural megatrends relatedto culture in the Information Society that provide the larger referential framework for the study. Thesemegatrends lead us to a number of working hypothesis, which create the body of this document.
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At present, there are 8 hypothesis on organisational change, 5 hypothesis on financial issues, 10 thesis ontechnology, 8 working hypothesis which tackle with exploitation issues, 4 hypothesis on services anddemands, and 8 hypothesis that try to scope the national policies and initiatives theme. They reflect thefindings of the initial desk research phase and outline the current boundaries for the DigiCULT study. As a next step, the consortium will develop several research questions for each working hypothesis. Someexamples are already included in this document, while the DigiCULT team will jointly formulate the othersduring the Consortium Meeting in Vienna. We would like to point out that this is a working document meant as initial input for further discussionby the Steering Committee Members and the DigiCULT partners. As such, it has its strengths andweaknesses: Some areas such as technology, organisational issues and policies and initiatives are wellcovered, while other areas such as financial issues and exploitation need input. In this respect, we expectsome valuable contribution to arise from the discussions in the larger forums of the Steering Committeeand the Consortium.
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Table of Contents DEFINITIONS.7
1.1 Cultural Sector.71.2 Cultural industries.71.3 Cultural institutions.71.4 Cultural heritage.81.5 Digital cultural artefacts and resources.91.6 Characteristics of digital and networked resources. 10
CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC MEGATRENDS.11
2.1 Cultural and memory institutions have to come to terms with the changing meanings ofculture. 112.2 In the information society the mission of memory institutions will be reinforced, yet theregulatory framework of their activity has to be cleared . 122.3 The key economic areas Information Technology, telecommunication and content industriesconverge. 132.4 Information and knowledge work will become the dominant form of work. 142.5 The impact of the ‘job machine’ cultural industries and institutions is decreasing since thebeginning of the 1990s. 15
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGES .16
3.1 Change management towards cultural ‘e-business’ – cultural and memory institutions haveto reinvent themselves . 163.2 In order to respond adequately to the fast changing environment, cultural institutions haveto become learning organisations. 173.3 Archives, libraries and museums will become ‘hybrid’ institutions. 183.4 The proportion of ‘born-digital’ documents and artefacts in ALM-institutions will increase toX% (10%?) within the next 5 years. 183.5 The key to success lies in strategic partnerships and co-operation. 19
Inter and cross-domain co-operation of institutions.19Co-operation including (semi) public and private organisations.20
3.6 Human resources development will be a major challenge for cultural and memory institutions
3.7 Cultural and memory institutions will have to fight for employees with high ICTqualifications . 22
TECHNOLOGY.23
4.1 Information technology is getting ever more powerful and initial costs are decreasing. 234.2 The half-life period of technology and expert knowledge is decreasing rapidly. 234.3 The Internet is the essential propellant in the information society . 244.4 Conceiving the cycle of technology, content development and use. 25
Cultural and memory institutions must aspire to collectively provide integrated andseamless access to their wide range of heterogeneous cultural resources and services.25The criteria which determine the selection of cultural resources for long-term preservationand access have to be made explicit.26Cultural and memory institutions have to come to terms with media (in)stability andDigital preservation - empowering organisations to take action.29Digitisation is (nearly) all about access and delivery.30
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Securing authenticity and integrity of resources, and tracking the life events of a resourcesCataloguing: It is all about metadata, is it?.31FINANCIAL ISSUES.33
5.1 Most of the cultural heritage resources archives, libraries and museums care for are publicgoods . 335.2 A huge gap is growing between all that cultural and memory institutions should and aretrying to do and the funding available for it. 335.3 Long-term ownership costs of digital cultural resources and media will put a heavy burdenon memory institutions. 345.4 Cost effectiveness can only be guaranteed in the long-term and with considerableprerequisites. 355.5 When to eliminate digital resources from the cultural record? . 36
SERVICES AND DEMANDS.37
6.1 The theme cultural lifelong learning should be addressed actively. 376.2 The demand for cultural services is increasing - cultural and memory institutions can profitfrom ongoing social changes, if they develop services which are directly in line with them. 376.3 Expectations of the users of cultural and memory institutions are changing in the digitallandscape. 386.4 Services for learning institutions are a major area where cultural and memory institutionscan generate added value and revenue streams. 39
EXPLOITATION.41
7.1 Cultural and memory institutions have to undertake a re-valorisation of their holdings in thelight of changing user expectations and new exploitation channels . 417.2 Coming to terms with disintermediation and prosumption is a key factor in exploitingcultural resources. 427.3 Cultural resources are and will be interesting to the broad public only within a culture of thespectacular. 427.4 Historic cultural resources are and will be interesting to broader user groups only in‘contextualised’ forms (e.g. educational materials). 437.5 Cultural and memory institutions become to a considerable degree producers and providers ofdigital products and services. 437.6 Cultural and memory institutions can reduce risks and enter new markets by workingtogether with mediating or broker agencies which have set up user-focused environments (e.g. tourism agencies) . 437.7 Only some cultural institutions will be able to generate considerable revenue streams throughexploitation of their resources . 447.8 The time factor in developing new services and setting up new businesses has to be takeninto account. 45
POLICIES AND INITIATIVES .47
8.1 Cultural and memory institutions depend on political frameworks and interdependencies onwhich they have only limited influence. 478.2 Clear shaped national policies on ICT implementation and use in cultural and memoryinstitutions are yet to emerge in most European countries. 478.3 A balance between traditional and new services of cultural and memory institutions isessential for success . 488.4 Supporting co-operations on all levels. 48
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Public – private co-operation.49
8.5 Legal frameworks: Providing legitimate and free access to digital resources (e.g. national webarchives). 498.6 Funding policies: Governments. 508.7 Supporting the development of human resources in cultural and memory institutions. 51
SOURCES / LITERATURE.52
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DEFINITIONS 1.1 Cultural Sector Cultural Sector
The cultural sector consists of cultural industries and institutions, which provide aconsiderable share of today’s content of the ‘information revolution’. A dynamicdevelopment and growth of the cultural sector is of vital importance for theinformation society as cultural industries and institutions create, disseminate andpreserve the bulk of the content that circulates within the different media channelsor is presented locally. 1.2 Cultural industries Cultural industries
The cultural industries make up “perhaps five percent or more of GDP in mostcountries, and by any standards this is significant in economic terms” (Throsby[Department of Economics, Macquarie University, Australia], 2000, 38). The cultural industries include (cf. “Culture, the cultural industries and employment”,1998):
audio and audiovisual media: film, music, television, radio, cinema;
interactive on and off-line multimedia: e.g. games, ‘edutainment’, and productpresentations;
the publishing industry: books, newspapers and magazines;
the performing arts: e.g. music halls, dance, theatres and opera houses;
and socio-cultural activities, e.g. festivals. Dependent industries: There is a series of economic activities (value chains), which depend on the cultural
industries, for examples the manufacturing of electronic equipment (TV sets, videorecorders, games consoles, hi-fi equipment) and physical media (CDs and CD-ROMswith music or games) or the sale of cultural products (distribution trade). The wealthof available culture e.g. exhibitions or festivals, also has a major influence ontourism. Employment in such activities is directly related to the availability of abroad spectrum of (European) cultural resources. 1.3 Cultural institutions Cultural institutions Cultural institutions play an important role in the preservation of cultural heritage,
provide access to the cultural memory, and support the multiplicity and diversity ofEuropean culture. With regard to their mission and function, they are not onlydriven by commercial interests. Cultural institutions are public, semi-public or private institutions. Libraries, archivesand museums are occupied with providing cultural ideas, products and services and
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making them accessible to the public or specific user groups for educational andleisure needs. Institutions include cultural and arts centres, museums, libraries, archives,information and documentation centres, and other cognate institutions, eitherfunded by government or local government, as well as non-governmentalorganisations (NGOs). The cultural resources they provide are in a wide range of formats, including printedtext, electronic text, graphics, sound, video, hypermedia, oral delivery, andperformance. (Cf. Public access and freedom of expression in cultural institutions. InternationalConference Helsinki (Finland), 10-11 June 1999,http://culture.coe.fr/postsummit/nti/en/documents/Helsinki/eguidelines.htm
1.4 Cultural heritage Cultural heritage
Culture in its broadest sense is a ‘product’ of our everyday life. It is a
performance that fades into memory and then disappears. In addition, the recordof culture also consists of artefacts that have been created, which persist, butinevitably decay. ‘Digital cultures’ are simultaneously performances and artefacts,yet they differ in many ways from physical ones.
With regard to cultural heritage we have to keep in mind that there is no
such thing as ‘heritage’ per se. What counts and can ultimately survive as culturalheritage is an outcome not of universal ideas and objective criteria, but ofselection which is motivated by particular political, social and cultural interests,academic disciplines and professions (e.g. the arts and humanities) and marketmechanisms. These selection criteria decide whether there is “a future for the past”of certain cultural artefacts (Peacock 1994). Classification of
The following classification of cultural heritage gives a list of relevant tangible and
cultural heritage
intangible cultural heritage resources (cf. Klamer and Zuidhof 1998, p. 26):
sources: Tangible Heritage Immovable
- Monuments: buildings, sculptures, inscriptions, cave dwellings- (Listed) buildings: buildings in use, monuments- Groups of buildings: city centres
Sites (also underwater): archaeological, historical, ethnologicalCultural landscapes: nature parks
Paintings, sculptures, objects, collections
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Intangible Heritage
Art expressions: music, dance, literature, theatreMartial artsLanguagesLiving cultures(Oral) traditionsNarrativesNetworksFolklore
1.5 Digital cultural artefacts and resources What is the nature
Digital cultural artefacts are ‘systemic’ Certain prerequisites are necessary in
of digital cultural
order to be able to make use of it; specifically, the code and the equipment to
artefacts?
store, read and represent the artefact. As a consequence, for preservation purposesthe code and the equipment must be preserved as well, or ways found to migrate itto new hardware of software systems. Types of digital cultural artefacts
digital information on cultural resources: e.g. online catalogues, bibliographies,and listings of cultural works and artefacts; *
digitised resources: all types of media and formats;
and, ‘born-digital’ cultural resources: e.g. electronic publishing items, virtualart works, exhibitions, tours.
*Note: In project descriptions the term digitisation often is often used incorrect,i.e. the term is used but at a closer look means digital data about cultural resourcesnot resources that have been digitised.
Legacy resources are largely non-digital resources, including for example
manuscripts, prints, slides, maps, audio and video recordings. Despite theincreasing investments in digitisation, the vast majority of legacy resources willremain outside the electronic domain for many years to come. For the management of these recourses, most memory institutions have their owndigital services in place. For users outside the institutions, services have been builtover the last decade that allows discovery, location, and inter-institutional requestand loan of materials.
Digitised resources refer to material successfully transferred into the digital world:Besides the item in its traditional form, now there exists a digital version of thecultural source in a format suitable to be used in another medium (e.g. for displayon a computer monitor).
Cultural resources that have been created with hardware and software and cannot
be used without them are referred to as born-digital artefacts.
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1.6 Characteristics of digital and networked resources Characteristics of
There are some essential parameters which differentiate digital and networked
digital and
resources from traditional cultural assets:
networked cultural resources
can be produced in a collaboration of people from all over the world;
can be ‘democratised’: originals are often rare or too fragile to withstand muchphysical handling; digital surrogates are easily accessible and useable for all;
can be stored relatively inexpensive and compact;
can, if properly organised, be easily searched or reordered;
can be copied many times (relatively) inexpensive;
can be networked, resources that are widely scattered can be collected andmade useable for various purposes (e.g. in research and documentation,scholars can pick cultural items out of different collections and examine themside by side);
can be distributed to or accessed by thousands of people via various channelsin short time (ubiquity);
can be linked together according to different views of clusters of relatedcultural or scientific works;
can be ‘contextualised’: digital cultural surrogates can be embedded in anvirtual thematic environment (e.g. virtual exhibitions) which offers differentstarting points for interpretation;
can be enriched with relevant factual information, commentaries, explanations;
can be interactive, e.g. details of an image, different view points of an object,sequences of a video can be shown according to the interest of the user;
and, can be multimedia, i.e. can be cultural expressions in various mediaformats. Relevance for These characteristics of digital cultural items open up new ways of organising cultural and and making accessible the digitised or digital cultural sources of a local or regional community, a country, a continent, or of the world. institutions
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CULTURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC MEGATRENDS 2.1 Cultural and memory institutions have to come to terms with the changing meanings of culture ‘Atomic culture’
In the last decades, the meaning of ‘culture’ has undergone a severe change. As PaulStreeten of Boston University, World Development Institute, writes:“More than thirty years ago ‘culture’ stood for the values we thought all ofhumanity shared. Today it has come to mean almost the opposite: what every littlegroup, regional, sexual, ethnic, religious, differentiates from others, asserts itsidentity. The transition from ‘Culture’ to many cultures or from a global culture tomany minicultures has meant a change from universal humanity to the diversity ofsubcultures, every one often highly antagonistic and hostile to others.” (Streeten2000, p. 40)Streeten points to a clash of cultures within a society, but there are also culturalcontradictions in the global perspective (see: Barber, 1996; Jameson/Miyoshi, 1998,Wilson/Dissanayake 1996). Furthermore, the traditional canon of ‘high’- vs. ‘low’ cultural artefacts isquestioned. As Daniel Bluestone, Director of the Historic Preservation Program atthe University of Virginia has pointed out: “The preservation and conservation fieldtends to be imprecise in its arguments because, for a long time, we assumed thatthere was total agreement on the values and benefits of our work. We adopted asomewhat high style, canonical approach to cultural benefits. But this sense of ashared appreciation based on art-historical values has fractured in the last fifteen totwenty years.” (Bluestone 1998, p. 21)Of course, the ‘democratisation’ of cultural expression related to the explosion ofonline publishing will put a heavy burden on memory institutions: “Digital culturalartefacts are not the property of cultural elites, for this medium is profoundlydemocratic – millions of people are creating cultural artefacts in intangible forms,using computers and networks. Neither are they archived by the traditional culturalinstitutions organised and funded by cultural elites.” (Lyman/Kahle 1998)
Relevance for Archives, libraries, museums and other actors in the area of cultural heritage and cultural and memory memory have to come to terms with the changing meanings of culture. The clash institutions of cultures within societies will have consequences for the general orientation and work of the memory institutions (e.g. changes in the selection policies). Different groups (micro cultures) will demand to be present in society’s memory with their cultural record. Furthermore, the traditional canon of valuable cultural artefacts and the basic distinction between ‘high’ vs. ‘low’ culture will become increasingly blurred. Popular, everyday, regional or community based elements of cultural heritage have to be evaluated adequately. It also has to be kept in mind that with regards to exploitation, collections of popular culture items might be more interesting than high culture resources (e.g. popular music vs. classical music). This orientation also will be of relevance when cultural institutions think of developing new services for their customers, for example educational material. Materials that are oriented towards culturally popular themes might be more attractive than the canonical ‘classics’ of
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education. 2.2 In the information society the mission of memory institutions will be reinforced, yet the regulatory framework of their activity has to be cleared General description: In the information society a revolution is taking place with regard to the sheer
volume of digital information produced and disseminated through ever more mediachannels, but especially through the Internet (e.g. websites [about one billion in theyear 2000], mailing lists, discussion forums). A portion of this ‘information overflow’ is valuable cultural and scientificinformation that challenges memory institutions. The key to coming to terms with‘information overflow’ is a well-informed selection of valuable resources. This is oneof the major functions and assets of memory institutions and therefore theirmission will be enhanced in the Information Society. Relevance for According to their traditional mission, memory institutions will have to cultural and memory systematically capture, organise, preserve, draw attention to and make institutions accessible digital information (e.g. web pages) they regard to be of value for actual users and or future generations. But in order to do this the legal framework has to be clarified. There is not only the need to revise the deposit law for national libraries, also the copyright and privacy legislation may be in conflict with the preservation of online information and reasonable studies in a web archive.
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2.3 The key economic areas Information Technology, telecommunication and content industries converge General description Only a few years ago the Information Technology industry, telecommunications, and
content industry were largely separate areas of economic activity. As a result of‘digital convergence’ these areas now are integrated and form a new industrialcomplex (see illustration):
providers Convergence industry Information technology communication
Two principals form the basis for this new industrial complex:• First, with digitisation content can easily be combined, repackaged and re-
• Secondly, the technical channels through which content can be distributed to
potential consumers or users multiply.
The key to the success of players in the new industrial complex is intelligentsolutions on how digital information or media services can be offered acrossdifferent channels and user interfaces for targeted consumer or user groups. Experience has shown that the essential elements for market success are thecomfort and value-added potential users see for themselves in specific services (e.g. content packaged exactly the way the user needs it, easy to access and use, andbenefits that outweighing cost). This explains the success of the (low-bandwidth)Internet compared to the market failure of most broadband, interactive offerings(e.g. Video On Demand). Relevance for Cultural industries: A major part of the content is provided by the cultural cultural and memory industries (others being for example information services for businesses and institutions professions). Cultural industries have to adapt to the opportunities provided by the digital convergence, set up new lines of business (online branches) and
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strategic partnerships (e.g. with providers of services and applications). Well established ways of ‘doing business’ change with consequences as for example, ‘disintermediation’: with online publishing, for example, the traditional delivery channel of magazines is eliminated. Cultural institutions can profit from the digital convergence when they market their relevant cultural resources to media companies (B2B) or produce value added products and services themselves (B2C). 2.4 Information and knowledge work will become the dominant form of work General description Information and knowledge work will become the dominant form of work.
Information workers are employees whose main task is to manipulate symbolicinformation (e.g. texts, graphics, calculations). They select, extract, structure,combine, make available, exchange or sell information. Within the three traditional economic sectors, agriculture, manufacturing andservice, information workers are primarily located in the service industries. Yet,knowledge work also plays an essential part in effective manufacturing andagriculture. A fourth ‘sector’ emerges: if all information workers from the three traditionalsectors are subsumed under one sector. According to calculations by the GermanInstitut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB) the distribution of employeesin the ‘four sectors’ in Germany from 1950 to 2010 shows the following figure:
Employees in the four economic sectors (1950-2010)
Source: Seufert 1997, 67 (based on Dostal 1995, 528f.)
Percent of employees in the four economic sectors in Germany 1950-2010. Source: Seufert1997, 67 (based on Dostal 1995, 528f.).
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Relevance for Cultural industries and institutions depend to a high degree on effective cultural and memory information work. This is particularly true for memory institutions (archives, institutions museums, libraries) where the provision of information about cultural resources is one of the key tasks. Today, memory institutions need to meet the changes in handling information brought about the new information and communication technologies (ICT). Due to their function of providing basic information services to the public, libraries, for example, are challenged to contribute to ‘digital literacy’ throughout society. Consequently, public libraries will then function not only as information centres but also as places where people learn to make use of new media. 2.5 The impact of the ‘job machine’ cultural industries and institutions is decreasing since the beginning of the 1990s General description In 1995, there existed 2.5 million jobs in the cultural sector in the fifteen countries
of the EU. If arts and crafts are included, the cultural industry provided over 3million of those jobs, which is more than 2% of the total. During the 1980s and thebeginning of the 1990s, employment growth in the European cultural sector wasvery positive:In Spain, employment was up 24% between 1987 and 1994 and in France, thenumber of jobs in the cultural sector increased by 36.9% between 1982 and 1990(ten times the increase in the total working population over the same period). Similarly in the United Kingdom the cultural employment sector grew by 34%between 1981 and 1991, with an average growth rate of 14% for employment inthe cultural sectors, whereas the increase in the total working population wasnegligible. In Germany, employment of cultural producers and artists grew by 23%between 1980 and 1994. However, this development tailed off in cultural sub sectors that were heavilydependent on public funding when budgetary restrictions were imposed in the early1990s. (“Culture, the cultural industries and employment”, 1998)
Relevance for Archives, libraries and museums are not likely to have considerable potential in cultural and memory the development of new jobs (e. g. technological upgrading and development of institutions digital services in the field of libraries, does not lead to an explosion of job opportunities). They even will have to work hard to keep personnel, which they need to provide key services and develop new ones.
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ORGANISATIONAL CHANGES 3.1 Change management towards cultural ‘e-business’ – cultural and memory institutions have to reinvent themselves General description The frequent assumption that the introduction of ICT can serve as a ‘motor’ for
organisational change in a company or institution is more than questionable. Inpractice, such notions often lead to shortsighted and unsuccessful ICT projects Themain prerequisites for the successful use of new media such as budgets coveringtotal cost of ownership or training of employees, are often neglected. In other words: ICT is only one ingredient in the fabric of knowledge-basedcompanies and institutions: “[.] in knowledge work, the 33 1/3 percent rule applies:if more than a third of the total time and money resources of a project is spent ontechnology, the project becomes an IT project, not a knowledge project.”(Davenport/Prusak, 1998:78)The development towards a cultural ‘e-business’ model can be illustrated with thefollowing schema. From the use of information technology for data processing inone department (e.g. catalogue or collection management) the development shouldproceed to a complete integration of the workflow by means of ICT. External users: access to Services/applications/transaction catalogue data; mainly other models for different external institutions , academic user groups 1960/1970/1980: 1981-1990: 1991-2000:+Inter-/Intranet
• Online Presentation• External users: Online Access to catalogue data
IT/ICT = Information/CommunicationTechnology; MI = Memory Institution
Today, many memory institutions lack a clear strategy with regard to their
business processes. The piecemeal, one-dimensional approach is often due to thefact that the original impulse for ‘going online’ came from a single department (oreven an individual) with a particular interest. Other important factors are smallbudgets and project-to-project funding.
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Relevance for At present, it cannot be assumed that new technologies foster structural change cultural and memory within cultural and memory institutions (archives, libraries and museums, ALM institutions institutions). Quite the opposite is true: In order to beneficially implement ICT they have to ‘reinvent’ themselves. ICTs are systemic technologies that affect all practices and procedures of an institution, if properly integrated. Therefore, ALM institutions that aim at optimising their internal and external workflow with ICT have to rethink their complete institutional fabric. For memory institutions progressing from a one-dimensional use of ICT (e.g. ‘having a website’) to new ways of doing their core business is clearly not easy to manage. Also, from the viewpoint of an institution as a whole the Internet will surely not be the essential catalyst. In some specific cases the Internet will help in fostering new working procedures and co-operation. But generally, steps towards a digitally integrated institution will, at least in a first phase, lead to a disturbance of internal politics, and tensions between ‘traditional’ and new working practices and processes. 3.2 In order to respond adequately to the fast changing environment, cultural institutions have to become learning organisations General description Successful companies and institutions in the knowledge society are ‘learning
organisations’. The term ‘learning organisation’ (Senge 1990) refers to companiesand institutions that constantly improve and adapt to their markets and networks aswell as to broader social and cultural developments. According to a growing body ofliterature in this area of research (e.g. Pedler et al., 1996), learning organisationsincorporate the following characteristics:• shifts and change are considered the norm, and organisational and personnel
• a culture and climate that encourages learning is generated and maintained, one
which includes all workers in the learning process;
• inflexible, hierarchical structures are replaced by networks and joint project
• distributed networked resources are utilised efficiently;• and, barriers for learning and transfer of knowledge are removed. Relevance for In order to respond adequately to their rapidly changing environment, cultural cultural and memory institutions have to become learning organisations. They need to permanently institutions learn about their environment, markets, new user groups and ways how to deal with them.
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3.3 Archives, libraries and museums will become ‘hybrid’ institutions Hybrid memory
The recognition that ALMs have to come to terms with the digital revolution mightbe best illustrated with a term that has been coined in the library sector: The notionof a ‘hybrid library’. Taken in its full meaning, the term does not mean that librariesjust have to add some new digital services (e.g. online reservation or e-magazines)to the set of services they traditionally offer to their clients. The challenge is clearlynot one of addition, but qualitative, namely to find the right combination andinterrelations of the physical and digital spheres. Librarian Heikki Poriola writes for his profession: “Are there really still people whosee the ‘library’ in terms of the previous century’s tasks? Developing libraries isabout much more than preserving literature in book form. It is about being centresof information; whatever the information and whatever its format.” (The FinnishLibrary Journal 7/2000)As Chris Rusbridge, former Director of the UK Electronic Libraries Programme, putsit: “The name hybrid library is intended to reflect the transitional state of the library,which today can neither be fully print nor fully digital. As we have seen, in so manycases the results of adding technology piece-meal are unsatisfactory. The hybridlibrary tries to use the technologies available to bring things together into a libraryreflecting the best of both worlds.” (Rusbridge 1998)Archives, libraries and museums will become ‘hybrid’ institutions. Beside theirtraditional holdings and offerings, they will have to collect, organise, preserve andgive access to new media (electronic documents and artefacts, ‘born-digital’ anddigital surrogates) and/or direct user to such resources. Over the last years, ALMinstitutions have realised that they have to bridge two different worlds, the physicaland the digital, to become something different then they have been 20 or 200 yearsago. Relevance for For the next decades, the analogue holdings, will remain the core assets of cultural and memory memory institutions and their legacy to many generations. Thus they will institutions continue to use their tried-and-true methods of preservation and of making materials accessible to the relevant user groups. Yet, alongside and interrelated with the physical space, there will develop a ‘cyber-place’, online services, and virtual communities of interest and practice. Given limited financial resources, memory institutions will have to find the right balance between these information and knowledge spheres. For example: ‘in-house’ staff use will decline when the access rates to digitised or ‘born digital’ resources will increase. But, this will of course be counterbalanced to a considerable extent by online information and support tasks. 3.4 The proportion of ‘born-digital’ documents and artefacts in ALM-institutions will increase to X% (10%?) within the next
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3.5 The key to success lies in strategic partnerships and co- operation General description: In the digital economy, strategic partnerships and co-operation is the key to
success. The many business mergers in the last decade are vital proof for this. Whilecompanies and institutions today focus on their core business and assets, they alsoform strategic partnerships and co-operate with others to be successful in newmarkets. In the future, this will also apply to cultural and memory institutions. As Abby Smith, Director of Programs at CLIR, writes: “Building digital libraries alsoputs libraries in a new relationship with one another in the as-yet ill-defined digitalcommons. One thing this digital commons does not reward is competition amonglibraries. The digital commons rewards co-operation in building collections, insharing resources, and in developing standards for interoperability.” (Smith, 2000)In the area of cultural and memory institutions we can distinguish between:
co-operation of institutions in the same domain, e.g. a network of libraries;
co-operation of organisations in different domain, e.g. museums and archives;
and, co-operation including (semi-) public and private organisations andbusinesses. 3.5.1 Inter and cross-domain co-operation of institutions Inter-domain co-
Co-operation of institutions in the same field, e.g. a network of libraries, is most
operation
common. Yet, there might be differences with regard to the size of the institutionsinvolved: “Large libraries generally find it much more difficult to solve problemsthrough co-operation than do smaller ones, often because the organisationalcultures of the former reward competition. They are used to competing forcollections and research grants, for example, and they exist within a largerinstitution — the research university — that also encourages competition fordonations, research funds, and even students.” (Smith, 2000)
Cross-domain co-
An important topic in articles and national as well as EU initiatives is the co-
operation
operation of ALMs both horizontally (library to library) and vertically (library tomuseum, or archive to museum). There is a general trend which claims that the ageof the mono-disciplinary institutions is over and that cultural institutions should co-operate with each other regarding their business models, maintenance, digitisationand preservation of collections, expertise, skills. On the other side there is another picture of memory institutions that tells us thatthey seem not to be much concerned about cross-domain co-operation. Even whenlooking in all European countries cross-domain co-operation is still in its infancy. A recent study on cross domain collaboration between libraries, museums andarchives (ALMs) in Europe, has brought clear results that co-operation withinstitutions outside their own field of work is not a task that ranges high on thepriority lists. (cf. EC- DG Information Society, 2000). The study, which had an European-wide perspective, found: “Currently, the ALM co-operative efforts reveal to be finally not sufficient enough for the entirety of theEuropean countries (only 46 ‘projects’ in progress, actually associating the threeALM institutions, were able to be identified).”Causes for the neglect of co-operative efforts stem “mainly from the breaking up ofthe entities and the widely diverse statuses of the different institutions. The
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priorities retained put in the forefront those projects between institutions in thesame field and choices have to be made given the delays in the modernisation ofthe structures themselves.” The problems faced in coming to terms with one’s ownbusiness seem to contradict co-operation: “A vague conviction, even an objection tothe existence of an ALM collaboration, was expressed occasionally by certainprofessionals.” (EC- DG Information Society, 2000, p. 4+6). Most active in this field are Northern countries, which have set up cross-domainnetworks and projects that can be seen as examples of good practice for othercountries trying to establish cross-domain collaboration. Relevance for In order to establish long-term co-operation between various cultural cultural and memory institutions, real needs of and benefits for the participating institutions, for institutions their professional staff, and the user groups of the institutions have to be located. Projects with a regional scope seem to be most promising to initiate cross- domain co-operation
Colorado Digitization Project, http://coloradodigital.coalliance.org/:A collaborative initiative involving Colorado’s archives, historical societies, libraries,and museums. The project started in the fall of 1998 and in summer 2000 theproject website linked to more than 40 digital collections available in Colorado. (Bishoff/Garrison 2000)Cultural Heritage of the Industrial Era in Sweden, www.sou.gov.se/kulturarv/:Cross-domain co-operation can be stimulated if a thematic focus is set whichappeals and includes all relevant institutions as for example “Cultural heritage of theindustrial society” by the Swedish Government. This project is controlled by theCommittee on the Cultural Heritage of the Industrial Era in Sweden with financialresources of SEK 24.5 million for 1999-2001. 3.5.2 Co-operation including (semi) public and private organisations
Like successful companies, cultural and memory institutions will have to focus ontheir core businesses, and form strategic partnerships and co-operate with others tobe successful in certain markets. Private companies with which partnerships and co-operations will have to beformed include:
content industries, mainly in the cultural industries sector;
and, access and transaction providers.
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Technology/Service Providers Content Industry Access/Transaction Providers Outsourcing of single tasks Specialised firms System houses Inter/cross-domain co-operations Full service providers Cultural Heritage Digitisation Products Objects/Content Services Transactions Cataloging External Use Relevance for In order to be successful, cultural and memory institutions will have to focus on cultural and memory their core businesses and form strategic partnerships and co-operate with others. institutions Therefore, the institutions have to define clearly which tasks they can best accomplish in-house, including inter and cross-domain co-operation concerning common needs, and which tasks they can outsource to private service providers. 3.6 Human resources development will be a major challenge for cultural and memory institutions General description Being successful in the information age for cultural and memory institutions will call
for vision, leadership and high management standards. It must be recognised thatthe personnel (at all levels) will be of central importance to success or failure in thenew digital economy.
For example in the area of cataloguing some specialist knowledge and expertise willbe required by the staff responsible to create and maintain metadata. A specialised course was developed by the University of Glasgow: “MPhil in DigitalManagement and Preservation” offered by the Humanities Advanced Technology andInformation Institute (HATII) at the University of Glasgow;http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/ Courses/DigitalMPhil/
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Relevance for Human resources development will be a major challenge for cultural and memory cultural and memory institutions, not only with regard to IT experts but also regarding personnel institutions responsible to support users using in-house computer facilities. Also staff in management, financial, digital collection development etc. will play a key role. 3.7 Cultural and memory institutions will have to fight for employees with high ICT qualifications General description At least for the next few years, employees who can develop, build and run digital
networks are strongly sought after. According to a study by International DataCorporation <www.idc.com>, “The Internet Economy – An Employment Paradox?”, in2002 about 600.000 IT network experts will be missing in Europe. For example, theestimation for open positions in IT that cannot be filled amounts to 188.000 forGermany, and 29.000 for Austria.
The Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) recently presented a study onthe labour and qualifications requirements in the telecom and media sectors. (Leo2000) The survey covered companies operating in the telephony (fixed and mobilenetworks), data services (ISP, ASP, content), cable TV and broadcasting, software,multimedia and telecom hardware sectors. The study finds that 58.300 people havebeen employed in these sectors in Austria in 1999, which is 1.6% of the total workforce.
Based on interviews with business representatives that included questions aboutfuture demand for employment in their companies, WIFO forecasts that the numberof employees will increase to 69.000 people in 2003. About 44.000 jobs out of these69.000 will be located in Vienna. The highest increase in demand for IT professionalsis expected to occur in the following sectors: network infrastructure, IT, softwaredevelopment. Employment in the Austrian telecommunications and media sectors Source: WIFO (Leo,Employees Employees 69,020 + 10.720 Relevance for As the number of qualified IT personnel is limited, the cultural sector will have cultural and memory to compete for employees with other industry sectors. If cultural institutions institutions decide to cover IT needs with in-house staff, they need to develop a proactive policy to either attract IT professional, share IT expertise, or to actively involve their staff in ICT training programs.
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TECHNOLOGY 4.1 Information technology is getting ever more powerful and initial costs are decreasing General description Creating, storing and processing digital information quickly and efficiently depends
on powerful technology (e.g. microprocessors). For almost twenty years, thecapacity of technology has been increasing at an exponential rate and shows nosign of slowing down; e.g. processing power (speed) of standard microprocessordoubled approximately every eighteen months (‘Moore’s Law’). Over the same period,the cost of the technology has tumbled. Sheer storage capacity will not be a barrier to conceive cultural heritage projects asfor example to preserve the complete WWW-content of a country.
In the Swedish Kulturarw3-project in the latest complete download or ‘snapshot’ ofthe Swedish web in spring 1999, 15 million files were collected corresponding toabout 7,5 million pages. The data amounts to about 300 Gbyte/sweep. The total ofdata collected in seven harvests from summer 1997 to spring 2000 is 1500 Gbytes,70 Mio. files. (cf. Arvidson, Persson, Mannerheim, 2000)
Relevance for With the capacity of technology increasing and cost falling, the initial cost of cultural and memory technology itself will not be a barrier to the broad use of ICT in cultural institutions institutions. Yet, making decisions on which technologies are best suited to fulfil their mission is not as obvious to many memory institutions. 4.2 The half-life period of technology and expert knowledge is decreasing rapidly Technological self-
The intensified competition on the global market incessantly demands innovation in
obsolescence
production and services, with a premium on knowledge-intensive, intelligentsolutions. This process has caused a rapid reduction in life expectancy of knowledgeand technologies, with the half-life period of technology and expert knowledgedecreasing rapidly. According to prognosis, 80% of the technology used today willbe obsolete in 10 years. It will be replaced by novel procedures and new ways ofworking. Coming to terms with This decrease in the half-life period and the ever-shorter lifecycle of knowledge and
technology seems to be most extreme in the area of information andcommunication technology. The list of obsolete computer systems is impressive andis continuously growing (see: The Obsolete Computer Museum,www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org, or The Virtual Museum of Computinghttp://vmoc.museophile.com). Technological discontinuity and obsolescence is a major problem particularly forinstitutions whose core business is the preservation and long-term accessibility of(digital) cultural resources: “Fixing digital discontinuity sounds like exactly the kind
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of problem that fast moving computer technology should be able to solve. But fast-moving computer technology is the problem: By constantly accelerating its owncapabilities (making faster, cheaper, sharper tools that make ever faster cheaper,sharper tools), the technology is just as constantly self-obsolescing. The greatcreator is the great eraser.” (Brand, 1998)
Relevance for Cultural institutions are hit by the short half-life of information and cultural and memory communication technologies. They need to think very carefully about the institutions technologies in which they invest. This is especially the case in the area of preservation and digitisation of cultural heritage resources. Cultural institutions cannot influence the hardware and software spiral, but try to make it as smooth and non-disruptive as possible (e.g. by adhering to open standards and protocols). 4.3 The Internet is the essential propellant in the information General description The Internet is an essential propellant in the information society as more work and
transactions occur via the net: employees have access to relevant information onthe intranet irrespective of time and place; companies in the same value chainincreasingly integrate their information space to speed up information exchangeand to be able to be more effective (e.g. logistics); products and services are beingoffered, sold and paid via the internet. Relevance for For cultural institutions coming to terms with the Internet paradigm will be an cultural and memory important factor in the process of keeping up with the dynamics in the institutions knowledge society.
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4.4 Conceiving the cycle of technology, content development and Technology: Access Authentification/ user profiles, user interfaces / navigational tools, Transactions Cataloging Cultural / Memory Institution Management Internal: Print productions, External: Digitisation Selection for digital pre- servation / online access
Source: Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, 2001.
How will the evolution of these systems, architectures and infrastructure progress?Key factors:
• technological platforms and architectures• interoperability• standardisation• protocols• formats
Where are the key points for RTD? 4.4.1 Cultural and memory institutions must aspire to collectively provide integrated and seamless access to their wide range of heterogeneous cultural resources and services. General description: Only large cultural and memory institutions (e.g. national libraries) or groups of
institutions and companies which closely work together will be able to cover alltasks that have to be solved to provide an end-to-end process, from digitisation totransactions with end users. And even if they can establish such an end-to-endprocess, the integration with services of other institutions is far from being
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guaranteed. Although current research projects strive to solve at least the technologicalobstacles by establishing gateways between both systems and domains, users todayare still confronted with rather complex systems that require particular skills. Theyface different interfaces, negotiate with many authentication systems, various termsand conditions, numerous search mechanisms etc. Relevance for Cultural and memory institutions must aspire to collectively provide integrated cultural and memory and seamless access to their wide range of heterogeneous cultural resources and institutions services. This involves that data can be passed between different systems in the service delivery chain, including authentication, search, request, transactions, accounting. 4.4.2 The criteria which determine the selection of cultural resources for long-term preservation and access have to be made explicit General description: There is no ‘cultural heritage’ per se. What counts and can survive as cultural
heritage is an outcome not of some universal ideas and criteria, but of selectionsthat are motivated by certain political, social and cultural interests. The labelcultural heritage implies a specific valuation, indicating that an object hassomething culturally distinctive and can be considered to have a value for a certainsocial group or community, region, nation. The traditional materials from which cultural artefacts were (re-)produced allowedfor a considerable time-span for the decision whether an artefact should beregarded as valuable and preserved. In the digital landscape however, the timeframe for the evaluation and decision process is shortened due to the problems ofmedia instability and technological obsolescence.
Valuation of cultural resources is key when it comes to allocating the limited
resources (national/regional/local). Valuation is not the act of a single individual,but is a social activity including certain groups with certain criteria. Generally, wecan distinguish between four spheres of valuation:
commercial players: cultural industries and related businesses (e.g. insurancecompanies),
end users of cultural heritage resources: academic, research, educationalsector, cultural tourisms, and the general public.
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Traditionally, most important in the valuation process of cultural resources aredisciplines and professions. It is clear, that the relationships citizens have to theircultural heritage resources in terms of history, identity, and community areessential. In order to influence the selection of certain cultural resources for long-term preservation, however, these relationships must be articulated and madeoperative. Usually, this authority has been transferred to relevant disciplines andprofessions that have a mandate to define, valuate and interpret cultural heritageresources.
The relevant disciplines and professions include:
arts and humanities, social and cultural sciences: academics who are workingin the fields of archaeology, art history, literary history, and historical socialdata.)
professions related to cultural heritage resources: e.g. curators, archivists,museum curators, conservation professionals, and collection managers.
A starting point for the selection of resources for digitisation or of ‘born-digital’
items which should be added to the cultural record are the established collection
and preservation policies of the memory institutions. preservation policies Yet, existing guidelines designed for appraising traditional material cannot be
directly applied to digital information and might be inadequate to deal with issuesinherent to digital resources such as authenticity, functionality, accessibility andcontext (e.g. relationships to other documents). Furthermore, deciding what digital resources should be collected and retaineddepends on an overview and good knowledge about which items that have beenproduced are of significance, and are not yet collected by other memoryinstitutions. Therefore, active strategies to search valuable digital sources and co-operation between memory institutions are of vital importance for the selectionissue. (cf. http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/9.html)
Relevance for Cultural and memory institutions have to make the criteria that determine their cultural and selection of cultural resources for digital preservation and access explicit. Some institutions have a clear set of preservation tasks, e.g. institutions that institutions national or state depositories either historic or judiciary. Yet for many institutions selection is not an easy task: “The challenge of selecting the parts of a large collection that will be scanned is, for some, a novel task that calls into question basic principles of collection development and access policies.” (Smith, 1999) Considering the sheer amount of digital information and the limited resources available, to create high-quality digital collections, memory institution must work collaboratively with others to build resource bases that are complementary and not duplicative. In order to prevent duplication, information on planned and on-going digitisation projects should be made known to relevant institutions, for example through a commonly accessible database which lists where particular material is collected and stored.
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4.4.3 Cultural and memory institutions have to come to terms with media (in)stability and technical obsolescence General description: Future accessibility of digitised or ‘born-digital’ cultural resources depends on the
stability of the media on which the information is stored and the changes inhardware and software that is needed to retrieve and use the information. Changesin technology are regarded the greater risk as information will be renderedinaccessible within a much shorter time. There is less risk concerning thetechnological obsolescence of the storage medium such as magnetic and opticaldisks. To come to terms with these risks, memory institutions will have to use acombination of different methods:General preservation issues:
good practice in storing and handling: digital material should be stored in adust free environment away from magnetic fields at a stable temperature andrelative humidity; in addition, security issues need to be observed (e.g. thatdigital media should be stored in a separate area, with restricted access);
a strategy for retrieval and access: expected retrieval requirements willdetermine whether digital information is stored online, near-line, or off-line(e.g. little used off-line material may be stored on magnetic tape, includingcompression);
keeping data about stored sources and tracking the life cycle: keeping vital dataabout information management (e.g. preservation, copyrights, use rates).
Short- to medium term preservation solutions
refreshing: periodically copying the data onto a newer carrier of the same type;
transfer: copying data onto a more stable carrier (e.g. transferring data from afloppy disk to a writeable CD);
multiple distributed copies: storing identical material in multiple locations andregularly backing up (in order to protect against loss due to media failure orhuman error);
format migration: converting documents to newer and probably less volatilestandard formats to assist in maintaining access and facilitate later migration.
Medium- to long-term preservation solutions
migration: transferring digital material from one hardware and softwareconfiguration to another, or from one generation of computer technology to asubsequent generation;
emulation: using software that emulates obsolete encoding formats to provideaccess to programs across different platforms. Relevance for In order to come to terms with the risks of media (in)stability and technological cultural and obsolescence, cultural and memory institutions will have to develop a memory institutions comprehensive preservation policy in which the appropriate methods are defined. Particularly the issues of medium and long-term solutions demand more research and practical experiences.
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4.4.4 Digital preservation - empowering organisations to take action General description: Digital preservation can and should be defined in terms of maintaining the
accessibility of digital information objects in the context of changing technicalenvironments. Cultural and memory institutions are challenged on the one hand by theaccelerating digital resource creation and increasing volume of information whichexists in digital form, on the other hand, they face a situation of (technical)insecurity with regard to how ‘do the right thing’. Therefore, today empoweringorganisations to take action is a crucial. Maggie Jones (Arts and Humanities Data Service [UK]), referring to the “Workbookfor the Preservation Management of Digital Materials”, writes: “It would be easy tosimply defer developing any corporate policies and strategies relating to digitalpreservation until the whole scene has settled down and the results of research areknown. (.) However it is important for institutions to know that they can andshould take some action now, they don’t need to wait until everything is resolved. Indeed there is likely to continue to be a state of uncertainty and rapid change forthe foreseeable future, but that needn’t inhibit institutions developing an approachto creating and acquiring digital materials based on sound principles and policies. This approach will help to provide those materials with a significantly improvedchance of survival.” (Jones, 2000)
Jones, Maggie (2000): A Workbook for the Preservation Management of DigitalMaterials. Presented at: Preservation 2000: An International Conference on thePreservation and Long Term Accessibility of Digital Materials, York, 7and8December 2000, http://www.rlg.ac.uk/eventsa/pres-2000/jones.html (15-03-2001)[The workbook, developed from July 1999 and September 2000, identifies theissues and challenges associated with digital preservation and provides guidance toall those creating and/or acquiring digital resources.]
Relevance for Facing on the one hand an explosion of digital information, on the other hand, cultural and rapidly changing technical solutions how digital information could be preserved, cultural and memory institutions need guidance what they safely can do today institutions to address the preservation issue.
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4.4.5 Digitisation is (nearly) all about access and delivery Why digitise? It’s Though digitisation of cultural resources is often thought and spoken of with –nearly – all
regards to preservation, the primary aims of digitisation is to enhance access to
about access and these resources. Digitisation lays the grounds to offer new services to the
traditional user groups of memory institutions and break the way to new ways of
delivery
exploiting existing resources. As Abby Smith, Director of Programs, CLIR, has put it: “Though digitisation issometimes loosely referred to as preservation, it is clear that, so far, digitalresources are at their best when facilitating access to information and weakestwhen assigned the traditional library responsibility of preservation. (.) digitisationis not a reliable medium for preservation”. And: “Converting everything to digital form would be wrong-headed, even if wecould do it. The challenge is how to make analogue materials more accessible usingthe powerful tool of digital technology, not only through conversion, but alsothrough digital finding aids and linked databases of search tools.” (Smith 1999)
When it comes to preservation issues such as securing permanence and
authenticity, microfilming might still be the better option over digitisation. Becausedigitising (and microfilming) means a change in the format, and there is noguarantee that a digital surrogate of, for example, a historic newspaper would lastlonger than the original; not to speak of the authenticity which clearly would beaffected.
In a workshop on “Digital Culture and the Information Society”, organised by
EC – DG Information Society, Cultural Heritage Unit (2000) the essential point thatconcerning digitising (nearly) all is about access and delivery also has been made:“Digitisation cannot preserve per se – the original is better for that purpose – butdigital copies can protect against loss, improve usability and access, and extendthe usefulness of the content. The primary justification for digitisation is toimprove access and delivery of content.”
4.4.6 Securing authenticity and integrity of resources, and tracking the life events of a resources General description: Establishing and guaranteeing authenticity in the digital environment is a major
challenge for memory institutions as digital material can be altered and copiedeasily, resulting in a multiplicity of versions of a particular document. Theseversions might have in some respects different functionalities and interactivity,different relationships to other documents, or a different ‘look and feel’. Therefore, easy to use (automated) authentication mechanisms have to bedeveloped:“Authentication: of a document, to verify that the document is the same as thatwhich a user expected, based on a prior reference. Mechanisms to assureauthentication may include naming schemes, watermarking and various kinds of(open) encryption techniques.” (Cedars project, 1998)Beside the alterations and distortions which are made by organisations andindividual outside the memory institutions in the course of converting or renderingdigital objects, also the process of migrating information from one preservation
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system or format to another may result in changes which need to be recorded. Strategies for asserting the authenticity of digital resources include among others
the registration of unique document identifiers and the inclusion of metadata;
hashing and digital time stamping (which authenticate the existence of adocument, in the case of the latter method, at a specific time);
encapsulation techniques and encryption strategies.
(cf. http:andandwww.nla.gov.auandpadiandtopicsand4.html)
4.4.7 Cataloguing: It is all about metadata, is it? General description:
Due to their different institutional missions, cataloguing in libraries, archivesand museums did not develop coherently. Only today, there is an attempt tobridge this institutional gap by developing gateways between the cataloguesof various cultural domains. The most promising approach to this problem isseen in the generation of (standardised) metadata that allows integratedsearch and retrieval of catalogue data. The various (draft) preservation metadata specifications that were produced aspart of projects often were developed in response to specific requirements(e.g. Cedars, NEDLIB, National Library of Australia). Yet, there are areas ofconvergence between them, notably the explicit or implicit influence of theOAIS model (divergences might concern issues like granularity andimplementation). OAIS
The OIAS-model provides a generic architecture for digital repositories,aiming to develop a shared understanding of vocabulary and concepts. [OAIS– graphic]
Metadata sources Europe:
Cedars: Kelly Russell, Derek Sergeant, Andy Stone, Ellis Weinberger andMichael Day, Metadata for Digital Preservation: the Cedars OutlineSpecification. Leeds: Cedars project, March 2000. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cedars/OutlineSpec.htmNEDLIB. Catherine Lupovici and Julien Masanès, Metadata for Long TermPreservation. NEDLIB Report series, 2. The Hague: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, July2000. http://www.kb.nl/coop/nedlib/results/D4.2/4.2.htmCARMEN AP 2and5: Metadaten zu Terms und Conditions und zur Archivierung:http://harvest.sub.uni-goettingen.de/carmen/
National Library of Australia Preservation Metadata Working Group,Preservation Metadata for Digital Collections: Exposure Draft. Canberra:National Library of Australia, 15 October 1999. http://www.nla.gov.au/preserve/pmeta.html
The U.S. Research Libraries Group (RLG) and Online Computer Library Center(OCLC) are co-operating to develop infrastructures for digital archiving. In aworking document the issue of “Preservation Metadata for Long-TermRetention” is addressed. The document reviews - and attempts to synthesise –the various draft metadata specifications proposed by the Cedars project, theNational Library of Australia (NLA), the NEDLIB project and Harvard UniversityLibrary. (See: www.rlg.org/pr/pr2000-oclc.html; Day, 2000). RLG is a not-for-profit membership corporation of over 160 universities,
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national libraries, archives, historical societies, and other institutions. OCLC(www.oclc.org) is a non-profit, membership, computer library service andresearch organisation whose computer network and services link more than36,000 libraries in 74 countries and territories. [A division of OCLC isPreservation Resources (www.oclc.org/oclc/presres/) is a non-profitorganisation devoted to the reformatting or conversion of library and archivalmaterials.]
Relevance for cultural The creation and maintenance of metadata, regardless of what particular and memory digital preservation strategy has been adopted is of vital importance. institutions
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FINANCIAL ISSUES 5.1 Most of the cultural heritage resources archives, libraries and museums care for are public goods General description Most cultural heritage resources have the character of public goods that many
people value and share but which cannot be properly priced. This occurs when noone can be excluded from the consumption and access to and use of a good. Therefore, cultural heritage is a market of goods where resources cannot beallocated effectively through traditional market mechanisms. Left to marketmechanisms alone, this would lead to market failure: “Economists recognise thatmarket failure is the rule, not the exception, in the case of cultural heritage.”(Mason, 1999)The overall value of cultural heritage goods is not reflected by the prices individualsare willing to pay in the market for consumption. Hence in addition to traditionalmarkets, for cultural heritage resources a non-market arrangement or other types ofeconomic mechanisms are required (i.e. government grants or voluntary donations). These mechanisms should also take into account externalities of cultural heritageresources. Externalities are benefits or costs of a good or service that are notaccounted for by some kind of market transaction. Such effects can be positive ornegative, e.g. a cultural site attracts people who spend money, some jobs aregenerated, yet, there also needs to be additional investment for parking spaces. Relevance for Governments and cultural institutions have to have a clear understanding of the cultural and memory business model for public goods and the non-market arrangements. They have to institutions learn from the disciplines that focus on the economics of cultural resources (see for example: The Association for Cultural Economics International [ACEI], www.acei.neu.edu.) and which have developed methods to assess the use and non-use value of certain cultural resources (e.g. contingent valuation). With regard to ongoing or possible reduction of funds, it is necessary to highlight the many benefits that come from cultural resources that are not compensated for by the market (i.e. prestige value, bequest value, educational value). 5.2 A huge gap is growing between all that cultural and memory institutions should and are trying to do and the funding available for it General description: According to their traditional role as non-commercial institutions, most cultural and
memory institutions are heavily dependent on public funding. Since they possessonly limited options to generate relevant revenue stream out of their ‘ core business’their capacity for development is directly tied to the availability of public funding. However, there is a growing trend of decrease of public funding for the culturalinstitutions since the 1990s. The emergence and the implementation of ICT adds an additional growing cost
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factor for cultural institutions. In Finnish libraries, for example, computers systemsand the costs associated with them consume, on average, up to 20% of the totalcost of running a library, often at the expense of other operations. (The FinnishLibrary Journal, 6/2000). In addition to the running costs, it is not yet clear wherethe funding to sustain and further develop the digital resources and services willcome from. As a result of decrease of public funding, libraries, museums and archives arelooking for new revenue streams by entering a new world of competition and co-operation. However, this effort takes away from the core business and makes itincreasingly harder for these institutions to concentrate on their traditional tasksfor which there is still a great demand. Therefore, the gap between the tasks that cultural institutions should do and whatthey are trying to do (new technological equipment, digitisation, preservation, newservices, restructuring of their work, professional and IT training) and the fundingavailable for is growing rapidly. Without adequate funding, much of the actualaspirations might in the end turn out to be counterproductive: “There is a seriousrisk that in trying to do everything, libraries end up doing nothing properly.” (TheFinnish Library Journal 7/2000)
Recommendations: 1 In order to prevent cultural institutions of loosing sight of their traditional tasks as they concentrating on their new roles, and also to prevent ICT to become an end in itself, governments should focus on a balance between traditional and new services of cultural institutions. There is certainly the need for the internet, but the balance between new and traditional services should also be stressed. 5.3 Long-term ownership costs of digital cultural resources and media will put a heavy burden on memory institutions General description: Although the storage of paper and other non-digital media is of course costly, these
materials usually endure with limited intervention. On the other hand, if digitalinformation is to last, a systematic maintenance program must be implemented, andthe long-term costs for such a program must be planned for and their coverage beguaranteed. Otherwise technological obsolescence will rapidly render inaccessiblemuch of the digital cultural heritage resources. The costs associated with ensuring long-term preservation and access to digitalinformation is seen to be significant, yet there are only few concrete examples ofactual costs involved. The National Library of Australia, for example, estimates that the tasks involved inacquiring the first version of an online publication makes it five times more labourintensive than a print item (Phillips 1999). In a study for the British Library Research and Innovation Centre, an initial costanalysis and an overview of crucial elements in managing digital collections is given. (Hendley 1998) This study suggests that the cost of managing and preserving adigital publication over a 25 year period is about twenty times greater than it is forprint. Those calculations were based on the management of 500 to 1,000 newpublications per year. Once the volume rises to 10,000 or more per year, the unitcost could drop to perhaps five times the cost for print items. (Hendley, 1996, 116-
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7)A detailed costing model developed at the Yale University Library compares therelative storage and access costs in a traditional library with those of a digitallibrary (Report of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information, Appendix,1996):The (yet untested) model predicts that the costs of maintaining digital objects aregreater than paper initially but becomes less over time. The estimations are based on200,000 volumes stored in both paper-based and digital form, and assume 15%annual use for the paper-based library and 20% for the digital library. The modelproposes that, over a ten year period, the annual digital storage and access costswould decline from an estimated $US 372,078 to $US 144,549. The paper-basedlibrary model estimates annual storage and access costs to increase from $US174,859 to $US 248,879. For the general prerequisites and prospects of cost effectiveness see the followinginformation module. Relevance for In order to make long-term preservation and access to cultural heritage cultural and memory resources possible, a systematic maintenance program must be implemented. The institutions long-term costs of this program must be planned for and their coverage be guaranteed. 5.4 Cost effectiveness can only be guaranteed in the long-term and with considerable prerequisites General description: The cost effectiveness of converting traditional material into digital resources and
of preserving digital-born is far from being clear:“But the cost of conversion and the institutional commitment to keeping thoseconverted materials refreshed and accessible for the long-term is high — preciselyhow high, we do not know — and libraries must also ensure the longevity ofinformation that is created in digital form and exists in no other form. We needmore information about what imaging projects cost, and about who uses thoseconverted materials and how they use them, in order to judge whether theinvestment is worth it.” (Smith 1999)In order to reach cost effectiveness in the longer term, many assumptions have tobe made:“Economic models comparing the digital to the traditional library show that digitalwill become more cost-effective provided the following four assumptions provetrue:-
that institutions can share digital collections,
that digital collections can alleviate the need to support full traditional librariesat the local level,
that use will increase with electronic access, and
that the long-term value of digital collections will exceed the costs associatedwith their maintenance and delivery.” (Chapman and Kelly, 1996)
Beagrie and Greenstein (1998) have pointed to the fact that “the decisions whichaffect the prospects for and the costs involved in data preservation are distributedacross different (and often differently interested) stakeholders”. These stakeholdersneed to be made aware of the impact their decisions will have on the future
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preservation of the digital information. For example, Hendley (1998) points out thatcultural data centres, archives, museums or libraries, must actively promote goodpractice to depositors in order to save money at the management and preservationstages. Relevance for Cultural and memory institutions will only come to terms with the issues of cultural and memory long-term preservation and access to digital resources, if the decision making of institutions all stakeholders are synchronised. 5.5 When to eliminate digital resources from the cultural record? General description The question of when to eliminate digital resources from the cultural record is an
open one. For example the “Statement of Principles on the Preservation of andLong-term Access to Australian Digital Objects”, which was prepared by the NationalLibrary of Australia with input from interested organisations, states that:
“Access to digital objects should be preserved only for as long as they are judged tohave continuing value and significance. It is neither practical nor desirable to maintainaccess to all digital objects indefinitely. In applying professional judgement toappraising items, consideration should be given to balancing costs and benefits,including the likely needs and interests of future generations.”Such a (pragmatic) principle will surely not be universally accepted. For example astudy by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher EducationFunding Councils) into opinions on responsibilities for preserving digital material inthe UK and Ireland recommends that once material is selected for preservation itshould be kept forever. (cf. http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/9.html)Decisions on how long to preserve digital resources will often be made for interimmeasures and partial conservation treatments, thus deferring the ultimateinvestment decision of long-term preservation. Of course, the time when amigration of resources should be made to secure long-term preservation and accesswould be an opportune moment to decide whether specific sets of items should bekept or not.
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SERVICES and DEMANDS 6.1 The theme cultural lifelong learning should be addressed actively General description Education can no longer be considered a more or less isolated inventory of
knowledge. Instead, it becomes a continuous, life-long process that is shaped andproven by problem solving and by taking on new challenges. In schools, rendering aset body of knowledge as a way to prepare for life seems to be passé Concrete hardand soft skills, for example, the ability for team-oriented knowledge-work, aresought for. Yet, as the UNESCO report “Learning: The Treasure Within” (1996) pointsout, there are four pillars of education for the 21st century: ‘learning to know’,‘learning to do’, ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to live together’. The (one-dimensional) emphasis on specific knowledge and skills is very clear in thearea of continuing professional education. Today, in America there are about 1.600so-called ‘corporate universities’ (with about 200 in the UK), which focus on generaland company specific knowledge and skills (from basic ICT-skills to themes asleadership, project management and marketing). In a study by Henley ManagementCollege (www.henleymc.ac.uk) it is estimated that in 2010 more Americans will havevisited a ‘corporate university’ than have graduated from a traditional university andcollege. Relevance for The theme lifelong learning is primarily associated with knowledge and skills cultural and memory that are relevant for the work place. Yet, the value of cultural lifelong learning institutions should not be underestimated. The realm of culture is not a counterpart to the demands of the work place, but itself an important generator of jobs and a valuable ingredient of all human relations. The cultural industries and institutions will have to actively address the theme of cultural lifelong learning and develop appropriate (online) services for all phases of the learning life cycle (pre-school, K12, university and college, pre- service professional education, continuing professional and personal education). This also is a clear aim in the European e-Learning initiative: “There is a need for learning environments tailored to the requirements at all levels of lifelong learning. This implies access to other forums of learning: libraries, cultural centres, museums, etc.” (Commission of the European Communities, 2000b) 6.2 The demand for cultural services is increasing - cultural and memory institutions can profit from ongoing social changes, if they develop services which are directly in line with them General description There is clearly a favourable trend towards an increasing demand for cultural goods,
services and communal cultural activities (the proportion of private expendituregoing on leisure, entertainment and cultural services increased slightly between1985 and 1994 to reach an average of 3%; [newer data and figures are looked for]). Essential social factors jointly influence the rising demand for leisure activities in
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more free time, whether by choice or not, resulting from reduced working timeor from unemployment;
living longer: life expectancy is now 80.1 for women and 73.7 for men in theEU, and people over 55, with their increased leisure time and disposable incomehave shown to be more active in cultural life;
higher standards of education: increased percentage of children attendingschool and number of students;
growing urbanisation: there is a clear relation between cultural activities andthe urban environment where the major cultural facilities are concentrated;
diversification of participation in cultural life: clubs, voluntary associations, etc.
(cf.: “Culture, the cultural industries and employment”, 1998):
Relevance for Cultural industries and institutions can profit from ongoing social changes, if cultural and memory they develop services which are directly in line with them, e.g. address the elderly institutions people who are interested in culture; address the cultural active city-dwellers – and try to reach people in rural areas; develop online material relevant for school curricula. 6.3 Expectations of the users of cultural and memory institutions are changing in the digital landscape General description: In the information society the traditional separations between the realms of work,
study, and leisure erode. This process is due to the virtualisation of activities that ismade possible by the new digital networks and media (e.g. tele-work, onlinelearning, e-commerce). Only in taking part in this process, the memory institutionswill meet the expectations of their potential user groups that will ask forknowledge-based, intelligent products and services. Memory institutions will have to face a paradigm change: The change will mean aswitch from the object-focused institutions to ones that are more user and networkfocused. In the object-focused institutions, knowledge and expertise is perceived tobe ‘in here’, and the users ‘out there’. In a user-focused cultural institution, theexpertise of professional staff is only a small part of – and dependent upon – thewider expertise of the whole community. This approach represents a very differentphilosophy of knowledge, organisation, and services of cultural institutions and itsimplications are significant. Relevant user groups, communities and expectations include for example:
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User groups Expectations Online research environments that are integratedinto the virtual space of the memory institution.Online materials for classroom teaching (materialthat fits into the curriculum and offer a ‘plug-and-play’ use by teachers) and learning at homeCourses and materials for cultural lifelong learningProducts and services that attract tourists and canbe used without a high-level of cultural knowledgeOnline catalogues for fiction and non-fiction filmand video resources of archives that are relevant forvarious programmes (e.g. historical, educational,Online catalogues for photography, pictures, anddrawings relevant for print or electronic publishing.Relevance for Cultural and memory institutions need to set their priorities concerning user cultural and memory groups, communities and specific expectations. Expectations which are not institutions related to their core businesses will have to be ‘outsourced’, i.e. the cultural and memory institution might only provide relevant resources for new user demands or participate selectively in the development of new services. 6.4 Services for learning institutions are a major area where cultural and memory institutions can generate added value and revenue streams General description Providing cultural online services for the educational sector is an interesting and
not unusual area for cultural and memory institutions. The broadest market in theeducational sector is schools: 81 million of the European Union’s 117 million peopleunder 25 attend school, 5 million teachers are involved. It is clear that there are many barriers to providing cultural online services tolearning institutions (e.g. schools):
fragmented demand due to high linguistic and institutional variety and differentcurricula,
small budgets of educational institutions.
Learning institutions have increasingly access to the Internet, as in the last years allEuropean countries have invested heavily in national educational networkinginitiatives (for promising, yet incomplete data on the ratio students to PC andpercent of schools ‘being online’ in European countries see the EENet exploratory,www.eenet.org, and Commission of the European Communities, 2000a, 36-37). Platforms and basic, free of charge information services (educational servers) for
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schools have been established by all European countries (see European Schoolnet,http://www.eun.org/eun.org2/eun/countries/ countries.html). Private publishers also have taken steps to provide online services to the national orEuropean educational community (e.g. LISA in Austria, www.lisa.or.at; the EC-fundedproject “Virtual European School” [1998-2000; volume of about 1,7 MECU],www.ves.eu.org]. Yet, providing cultural online services to schools depends in the final end on thefactual level of integration of new networked media in the environment and processof learning (e.g. class room teaching). This integration materialises only slowly. Relevance for The technical prerequisites for the use of cultural online services in educational cultural and memory institutions are actually already available or will be at hand in most places in a institutions few years. To address the educational community, cultural and memory institutions should build on the strength of the established European and national educational servers, and projects which aim to enhance the use of new media by teachers.
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EXPLOITATION 7.1 Cultural and memory institutions have to undertake a re- valorisation of their holdings in the light of changing user expectations and new exploitation channels General description: Because cultures evolve, the values of the cultural heritage are in constant flux.
Valuation involves the assessment of values that people actually attach to heritagegoods. Valorisation is about a change in values: “valorisation is the (re)appraisal ofthe heritage goods by means of deliberations, pleas by art historians, debates inpublic media and so forth”. (Klamer/Zuidhof, 1999, 31)
Historical and art photography: Cultural resources with rising value Since the beginning of the ’90s the recognition of (some) works of photography in the art market has been changing gradually from something to place alongside the lowly print to the status of true and valuable artwork. A clear breakthrough and signal came on October 27, 1999, due to the incredible hammer price of $ 760,610 for a photograph classified as historical during the sale at Sotheby’s of the collection of the former bookseller André Jammes: ‘La grande vague, Sète’ (1855) signed by Gustave Le Gray. This photograph became the most expensive ever sold at auctions. Until then, historic photography was considered as a market ‘lightweight’ compared to (iconic) photographic works of some famous artists as for example Man Ray. But, as Artprice.com statistics show, in 1999 21 prints by Le Gray were sold at auctions for a total value of $1,956,839, the highest total turnover on the photography market in 1999. In comparison, in 1999 101 photographs by Man Ray fetched ‘only’ $1,412,768 (including $ 550,000 for the iconic photography ‘Noir et blanche’, showing a white naked woman near an African mask). In terms of turnover, in 1999 sales of photographs by contemporary visual artist Cindy Sherman bested works of Man Ray. Sherman is famous for her elaborated scenic photographs in large formats that approach the effect of painting (produced in editions of six prints). In 1999 she sold 48 works for $1,867,813. With regard to the turnover of photographs of minor value, Artprice.com figures show that the recent increase in the number of sales has also seen a fall in average prices. Between 1990 and 1999, 36% of the photos were sold for less than $1,000. In 2000, that figure was 40%. An Artprice.com editorial commented on this: “That is what you call democratisation. By widening the base of its collectors, photography is setting itself up for posterity.” Artprice.com: Editorials 16.09.2000 and 08.11.2000, http://artprice.com (01-02-12)
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