Governmental organisations and cultural Open Data
Publication Date/Time
2018-08-01T15:30:00+00:00
Fostering the digitisation and publication of cultural heritage
New technologies have made it possible to expose cultural heritage on
digital platforms. However, until this moment only a small fraction of
the cultural institutions worldwide digitised their material and made
it openly available. You can read more about the importance of
digitisation of open cultural heritage and its re-use
[/en/highlights/cultural-institutions-and-cultural-open-data].

In fostering the process of digitisation of cultural heritage,
cultural institutions can benefit from governmental organisations that
fuel the policy debate on the topic and take measures to bring
stakeholders in the cultural sector together to improve the framework
conditions for digitisation.

This article outlines the actions European and national governmental
institutions have already taken to boost the digitisation of cultural
material. The Rijksmuseum (the Netherlands) and the Statens Museum for
Kunst (SMK) (Denmark), whom we interviewed about their Open Data
policy, provided insights how governmental organisations have
supported them during this process and shared their vision on what
else can be done by governmental organisations in the future.

WHAT THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION DOES TO FOSTER DIGITISATION OF CULTURAL
HERITAGE

The European Commission (EC) has an important role in fostering the
digitisation of cultural heritage. One of the EC's efforts regarding
cultural heritage is that the EC, together with cultural institutions,
developed and enriches Europeana [https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en],
the largest cultural heritage platform in Europe.

Europeana provides access to over 53 million items including image,
text, sound, video and 3D material from the collections of over 3700
different cultural institutions. The collections on various themes
such as art, fashion, music, photography and the first world war
contain galleries, blogs and exhibitions.

The foundation of Europeana was an important milestone in Europe's
ambition to create a shared, digital heritage that is available for
re-use. Now, cultural institutions such as libraries, galleries and
archives can digitise their collections for everyone to see them and
once these collections are made public online, Europeana makes sure
citizens can find, use and share them. According to the Rijksmuseum
and the SMK, Europeana has been very helpful in giving advice on how
to make their data available online. Another benefit is that Europeana
is a big, European platform with the ability to bring new visitors
into contact with museums.

EFFORTS EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS TAKE

In the last couple of years, European cultural institutions have
achieved progress with the digitisation of cultural material. There
are several examples of initiatives that governmental organisations
took to stimulate digitisation at cultural institutions and bringing
cultural material online without restrictions.

Cross-domain coordination
In the last couple of years, various national networks for
cross-domain coordination and cooperation have emerged to address
digitisation planning. An example of cross-sectoral cooperation is the
Dutch Netwerk Digitaal Erfgoed [http://www.netwerkdigitaalerfgoed.nl/]
(NDE) [Network Digital Heritage]. In this cooperation, several
organisations work together on a national level on a whole spectrum of
issues concerning digital heritage. The strategy of NDE includes goals
and work programs for a joint approach aimed at the development of a
national, cross-sector infrastructure of digital heritage. The
partnership has been initiated by the Dutch ministry of Education,
Culture and Science.

Funding
Since the costs involved in digitising Europe's cultural heritage are
a major challenge, several structural funds have been successfully set
up in different European member states for financing digitisation of
cultural material and related services. Public-private partnerships
have been established to engage private partners in the process. Next
to this, alternative funding sources are being set up, such as lottery
funding and national sponsoring from big organisations. According to
the Rijksmuseum, it is important that there is enough funding to
enable institutions to digitise the collection. The lack of money is
often a barrier for institutions to take the next step. The SMK states
that, especially in the last couple of years, there has not been very
much 'pushback' against the core ideas of open access. People in
institutions are 'culturally ready'. To help museums take that last
step the cultural sector needs convincing cases and models (funding/
revenue). According to the SMK, to further stimulate open access,
'openness' can be a requirement for any kind of funding in the
cultural sector for instance: openness can become a requirement for
applying for funding. 

THE NEXT STEP

To further stimulate open access in the area of digital cultural
heritage, it is important that national governments keep investing in
funding programmes and public-private cooperation. According to the
Rijksmuseum and the SMK, investments in both the development of
infrastructure and the maintenance of the infrastructure are crucial.
According to the SMK, it is "extremely important for the cultural
heritage sector in the digital era to have supporting frameworks". The
Rijksmuseum adds that especially smaller institutions have the aim to
make their collection available online but are often not in the
position to do this as they do not have the means. Facilitating
cultural institutions in developing and maintaining their
infrastructure will help cultural institutions to take the next step.
