Presentation given at UKMW12, the Museums Computer Group's Museums on the Web 'Strategically Digital' conference, Wellcome Collection, London, November 30, 2012

1. The Strategic Content Alliance
Museums on the Web:
Organisational Transformation and Sustainability

2. Mission…
If the UK is to realise the full potential of the web and every
citizen to realise their own potential - in the workplace, in their
places of learning and in the home - the full range of digital
content needs to be made available to all, quickly, easily and in
a form appropriate to the users’ needs.
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 2

3. Our supporters…
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 3

4. Our work…
 Inform Mindsets
 Influence Policy Agendas
 Develop Digital Strategy
 Enhance Skills With Tools
 Foster co-innovation…
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 4

5. Museums and Digital Sustainability…
collaboration...convergence…competition
RSS
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 5

6. Our definition of sustainability is…
the ability to generate or gain access to the resources—
financial or otherwise—needed to protect and increase the
value of the content or service for those who use it. Credit: Iithaka
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 6

7. Is sustainability a ‘buzz word’ of the moment…
 It’s not just about the money…
 It’s not just about ‘getting by’…
 It’s all about identifying the value …
 To a specific stakeholder or group.
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 7

8. Some basic – but critical—steps
sustainable collections and services take
Empower leadership to define the mission and take action
Create a strong value proposition – audience, marketing and outreach
Creatively manage costs
Cultivate diverse sources of revenue
Establish realistic goals and a system of accountability
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 8

9. Nat Torkington
‘Libraries: Where it All Went Wrong’ (2011)
If I ask you to talk about your collections, I know that you will
glow as you describe the amazing treasures you have. When
you go for money for digitization projects, you talk up the
incredible cultural value.
But then if I look at the results of those digitization projects, I
find the shittiest websites on the planet. It’s like a gallery spent
all its money buying art and then just stuck the paintings in
supermarket bags and leaned them against the wall.
Source: http://nathan.torkington.com/blog/2011/11/23/libraries-where-it-all-went-wrong/
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 9

10. Most visited Museum websites FY 2011….
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 10

11. Most visited Museums FY 2011…
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 11

12. Online income generation?
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13. Compared to…
Total membership revenue was
$623,826, up 58% on 2010-11
Donations generated
$148,151, up 8.3% on budget
($136,800)
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 13

14. The study sought to understand the following:
 What the assumptions, expectations, and obligations are that
govern support of digital resources from the point of view of
project leaders as well as ―host‖ administrators and
management;
 In what ways – and to what extent – institutions are
supporting and enhancing the on-going value of the digital
projects they and their staff/faculty create;
 And whether or not the current system is working.
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 14

15. Methodology: Deep Dives at the…
Imperial War Museums
National Library of UCL (7 interviews)
Wales (11 interviews) (28 interviews)
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 15

16. Two very different types of models
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 16

17. Observations of the Higher Education sector
 Decentralised activity undertaken by the library, IT, campus
museums, digital humanities centres, and academics in
pretty much every department
 No means to factor in long-term sustainability planning,
despite otherwise very rigorous grant-review processes
 Discovery is difficult. Very rare to have a campus-wide
aggregation or directory of content
 Strong emphasis on creation; little on outreach and impact
 What else could be done to draw together resources to
support this activity and maximize its impact?
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 17

18. Observations of Museums, Libraries
 Mission aims already support fundamentals of collection
development, preservation and access
 Moving towards central coordination of digital content
creation and management
 Core technical infrastructure supporting preservation and
access
 Emphasis on thinking about users … in person. More to do to
assess needs of online users
 Is creating the online catalogue enough?
 What else could be done to encourage further use and re-
use of digital content, post-creation?
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 18

19. Clarity concerning project aims/needs
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 19

20. Maintenance vs. Growth Projects
 Some are closed-ended
 Fenlandia
 Montefiore Testimonials
 For these, sustainability may mean simply finding a safe and reliable deposit
place.
 Others want or need to continue to develop
 CEELBAS
 Transcribe Bentham
 For these projects, no ―finishing point‖ exists; in order to retain their value, they
require ongoing development or curation
 And this distinction of intention determines the sort of support the project will
require going forward
Source: UCL
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 20

21. Some Recommendations…
 Many universities are starting to move towards creating either central sources for
information, hosting, and discovery solutions for digital research content
 They are asking themselves:
 Where is the content being created on my campus today, and how much
don‘t I even know about?

 What impact is it having today, and how could it be made more useful to the
academy and beyond?

 What structures can support basic needs at scale? What expertise do we
have on campus to support further growth for those project leaders whose work
shows real promise?
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 21

22. Some recommendations…
 Many museums and libraries are beginning to further centralise core functions
around creating and supporting digital content
 They are asking themselves:
 Which activities are best done centrally?

 What problems does this solve for us?

 What might we still need to do, ―beyond the catalogue‖?
 Specifically, how well do we understand how our online users benefit from
our online content?
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 22

23. Organisational trends
 A degree of unified and centralised workflow to streamline
production
 A move away from departmental to digital cross team work
 A recognition that ‗digital‘ will reach new global audiences
 A shift onto the social web and user engagement is critical
 Adoption of ‗dashboard‘ near and real time data analytics to
support development, ‗impact‘ and gap analysis
 Appointment of digital curators and digital education officers
 A move towards API development Adopting new models of
collaboration for WW1 centenary
 Realisation that ‗mobile‘ is where it is at….
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 23

24. Organisational trends…
 How organisational change means that some functions are best done in a
manner that scales, such as the platform and digital workflow…
 Cloud based services.
 Open and linked data/metadata. OERs. MOOCs.
 ‗Freemium‘ online income (open content + value added services).
 Website ‗make-overs‘ based on user centric design.
 Working with technology companies and start-ups (near field
communication etc.)
 How the importance of defining sustainability more broadly relates to
impact and usage and not just preservation….
 Crowdsourcing, social value and skills.
 Social web, outreach and marketing – it‘s global.
 Data driven analytics and data management.
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 24

25. Available now…
 Audience – building and
engaging online
communities
 Income – new revenue
streams, new business
models
 IPR – copyright, licencing
and rights management
 Web optimisation –
everything you wanted to
know….
 Freely available from:
http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/wp/
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 25

26. Framework for Post-Grant Sustainability
1.
Planning
Define desired post-grant impact
2. goals for your project
Work through
these steps
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 26

27. Coming soon….
 A Final report
 Toolkit:
‗Campus Survey‘ Tool
‗Health Check‘ Tool
 Briefing Paper:
Guidance for PI‘s
 Video Interviews:
Diane Lees, Andrew Green and Prof David Price
Available from January 2013….and Ithaka S&R will be taking a closer look at
the museum sector and the lessons learnt in Canada available later in 2013.
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 27

28. Thank you for listening and questions....
s.dempster@jisc.ac.uk
‘ For further information please visit the Strategic Content Alliance at
http://sca.jiscinvolve.org/wp/
www.jisc.ac.uk/contentalliance 04 December 2012 | Slide 28