Boom: Openness and Sharing in the Cultural Heritage Sector

1

BOOM

Essay
for
Sharing
is
Caring:

Openness
and
sharing
in
the
cultural
sector

Published
by
Statens
Museum
for
Kunst,
2014

Merete
Sanderhoff,
editor

Free
download
at
http://sharingiscaring.smk.dk/en

Boom

My
job
in
this
essay
is
not
about
tact
or
charm.
My
job
is
to
sail
a
gunboat
up

your
river
and
fire
a
warning
shot
over
your
city.

Boom.

The
future
is
here.
What
are
you
going
to
do?

I
gave
my
talk
about
“going
boldly
into
the
present”
and
the
urgent
need
for

change
at
the
first
Sharing
is
Caring
conference
in
November,
2011
–
more

than
700
days
ago.
During
those
700
days,
most
museums,
libraries,
archives,

and
cultural
organizations
didn’t
change
much:
if
you
visited
one
in
2011,
met

with
the
staff,
and
returned
again
today,
you
would
be
hard
pressed
to
detect

a
significant
difference.
Many
of
the
biggest
and
best
organizations
were

2

working
on
new
strategies
in
2011,
carefully
measuring
their
steps
into
the

digital
age,
and
many
of
those
plans
have
not
been
finished
or
implemented.

Others
spent
the
last
700
days
on
small
digital
experiments
without
risking

much,
asking
much,
or
expecting
much
in
return.
And
while
we
were
in

committee
meetings,
plotting
our
slow,
careful
course,
the
future
changed
–

accelerated
and
crashed
into
us
–
and
the
world
in
which
we
need
to
succeed

became
something
else.

In
the
700
days
since
my
talk,
the
world’s
population
grew
by
140
million

people
–
200,000
individuals
a
day
–
each
with
the
right
to
be
educated;
each

with
the
right
to
access
and
shape
their
culture.
476
million
people
became

new
Internet
users
in
the
last
700
days,
and
872
million
people
–
more
than

the
entire
population
of
the
European
Union
nations,
Canada,
and
the
United

States
combined
–
became
new
mobile
phone
subscribers.
Facebook
enrolled

its
one
billionth
member
last
year.
Facebook
is
only
ten
years
old,
but
if
it

were
a
country,
it
would
now
be
the
third
largest
nation
on
earth.
Wikipedia,

approaching
its
two
billionth
edit,
is
barely
a
teenager.

The
cost
of
a
computer
chip
–
perhaps
the
most
disruptive
technology
ever

made
–
fell
by
half
in
the
last
700
days.
Computer
chips
have
become
50%

cheaper
(or
two-‐times
more
powerful)
every
700
days
for
the
last
50
years,

and
they
are
expected
to
keep
doing
so
at
least
through
mid-‐century,
at
which

point
they
will
be
so
cheap
and
powerful
that
if
I
were
to
describe
the
societal

implications
here
you
would
likely
stop
reading
this
essay
in
disbelief.

The
exponentially
falling
cost
and
rising
power
of
computer
chips
also
has
a

short-‐term
consequence:
it
makes
Internet
access
and
technology
affordable

3

to
more
people.
2.4
billion
people,
34%
of
humanity,
are
now
online
and

connected.
Even
in
the
poorest
parts
of
the
world,
it
is
not
unusual
to
see

pushcart
vendors,
rickshaw
drivers,
and
even
beggars
with
cell
phones.

India,
the
world’s
largest
democracy,
has
a
new
“virtual
middle
class”
of
300

million
people
who
are
profoundly
poor,
but
who,
for
the
first
time,
are

claiming
their
full
rights
as
citizens
because
they
are
connected
to
the
Internet

and
can
interact
with
government
and
fellow
citizens
as
easily
as
their
richer,

more
educated
neighbors.
40,000
people
from
113
countries
just

took
Introduction
to
Sociology,
online,
for
free,
from
Princeton
University.

830,000
people
from
over
180
countries
have
contributed
time
and
effort
to

citizen
science
projects
through
the
Adler
Planetarium’s
Zooniverse
website.

The
citizens
of
Iceland
are
crowdsourcing
a
new
constitution.
Users
have

translated
the
Mona
Lisa’s
Wikipedia
page
into
89
languages.
The
National

Gallery
of
Denmark’s
website
features
comments
from
Germany,
Russia,

Spain,
New
Zealand,
India,
South
Africa,
the
Philippines,
Egypt,
Libya,
Turkey,

Nigeria,
Indonesia,
and
the
United
Kingdom:
On
one
group
of
pages
about
the

masterpieces
of
Danish
art,
comments
by
Danes
are
outnumbered
by

comments
from
other
countries
by
35:1.

Everywhere
I
look,
I
see
the
old
rules
about
who
has
a
voice,
who
does
the

work,
and
who
gets
to
benefit
being
re-‐written
on
a
global
scale.
It
is
amazing,

but
what
surprises
me
most...
is
that
we
find
it
surprising
at
all.
We
have

wanted
this
since
the
Enlightenment.

Our
institutions
are
founded
on
the
principle
that
knowledge
and
culture

belong
to
everyone;
that
we
will
be
a
stronger,
wiser,
more
resilient
society
if

4

citizens
understand
their
history;
understand
science
–
if
they
engage,
ask

questions,
converse,
learn,
challenge,
create,
and
do.
We
believe
that
culture

isn’t
something
frozen
in
amber:
culture
only
has
meaning
when
it
is
alive
in

our
minds,
re-‐worked
by
our
hands,
and
loved
in
our
hearts.

While
we’ve
been
in
committee
these
last
700
days,
advancing
at
the
scale
and

speed
of
yesteryear,
the
next
700
days
began.
The
future
is
ready
for
us
now;

hungry
for
our
resources,
craving
our
expertise,
listening
for
what
we
have
to

say.
It
is
our
obligation
–
our
privilege
–
to
respond
and
serve.
A
few
brave

institutions
lead
the
way,
but
even
they
must
race
to
keep
up.

And
just
outside
the
committee
room
–
beyond
the
exhibition
galleries;
past

the
library
stacks,
classrooms,
labs,
and
archives
–
another
question
looms:
It

isn’t
what
we
do
now
that
there
are
2.4
billion
of
us
online,
it’s
what
will

happen
when
the
next
5
billion
people
join
us.

Boom.

Let’s
get
to
work.

2014,
MICHAEL
PETER
EDSON,
DIRECTOR
OF
WEB
AND
NEW
MEDIA

STRATEGY,
SMITHSONIAN
INSTITUTION

1

Notes

“I
gave
my
talk”:
See
slides
and
a
transcript
of
the
talk,
Let
Us
Go
Boldly

Into
The
Present,
My
Brothers
and
Sisters,

at
http://www.slideshare.net/edsonm/
michael-‐edson-‐let-‐us-‐go-‐
boldly-‐into-‐the-‐present-‐text-‐version,
and
the
video

athttps://vimeo.com/43240962

“the
world’s
population
grew
by
140
million
people”:
140
million
is

the
rise
in
total
global
population,
not
to
be
confused
with
new
births.

Population
data
(as
of
mid-‐year,
2013)
from
US
Census
Bureau

International
Data
Base,http://

www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGate
way.php.

“each
with
the
right
to
be
educated”:
Statements
about
the

educational
expectations
and
the
right
to
access
and
shape
culture
are

direct
references
to
the
United
Nations’
Universal
Declaration
of
Human

Rights,
first
adopted
in

1948,
www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml,
accessed
9
May

2013.

New
Internet
and
mobile
phone
users:
Aggregate
Internet
and
mobile

phone
data
from
International
Telecommunications
Union
“2006-‐2013

ITC
data
for
the
world”
spreadsheet
at
www.itu.int/en/ITU-‐
D/Statistics/Pages/stat/
default.aspx,
accessed
1
May
2013.

“Facebook
enrolled
its
one
billionth
member”:
“Revealed:
The
third

largest
‘country’
in
the
world
–
Facebook
hits
one
billion
users”
by
Rob

Williams,
4
October
2012,
www.independent.co.uk/lifestyle/gadgets-‐
and-‐tech/news/revealed-‐the-‐third-‐largest-‐country-‐in-‐the-‐world-‐-‐
facebook-‐hits-‐one-‐billion-‐users-‐8197597.html,
accessed
1
May
2013.

“Wikipedia,
approaching
its
two
billionth
edit”:
Total
edits
in

Wikimedia
proj-‐
ects:toolserver.org/~emijrp/wikimediacounter/,

accessed
1
May
2013.

2

“The
cost
of
a
computer
chip”:
Think
in
terms
of
computers
the
size
of

bacteria.
By
mid-‐century,
a
,000
personal
computer
is
likely
to
have
a

billion
times
more
processing
power
than
the
combined
brains
of
every

person
on
earth.
Kaku,
Michio,
The
Physics
of
the
Future:
How
Science

Will
Shape
Human
Destiny
and
Our
Daily
Lives
by
the
Year
2100,
2010,

Doubleday,
New
York,
p.
117.
The
doubling
of
the
number
of
transistors

that
can
fit
on
a
computer
chip
every
18-‐24
months
is
known
as
Moore’s

Law:
I
use
700
days
as
the
period
of
doubling,
roughly
23
months.

2.4
billion
people
online:
Aggregate
Internet
and
mobile
phone
data

from
International
Telecommunications
Union
“2006-‐2013
ITC
data
for

the
world”
spreadsheet
at
www.itu.int/en/ITU-‐
D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx,
accessed
1
May
2013.

“Vendors,
rickshaw
drivers,
and
even
beggars”:
This
is
derived
from

a
com-‐
ment
by
journalism
professor
Dr.
Jack
Zibluk,
3
February
2013,

on
the
article
The
Virtual
Middle
Class
Rises,
By
Thomas
L.
Friedman,
2

February
2013,
New
York

Times,
www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/fried-‐man-‐
the-‐virtual-‐middle-‐class-‐rises.html,
accessed
1
May
2013.
Though
there

are
six
billion
cell
phone
subscribers
worldwide,
most
of
these
are

simple
“feature
phones”
that
can
send
and
receive
SMS
messages,
but
do

not
have
Internet
access.
Falling
chip
prices
are
expected
to
bring

Internet
ready
smart
phones
with
cameras,
video,
GPS,
WiFi
etcetera

within
reach
of
current
feature
phone
users
in
the
not-‐too-‐distant

future.
A
general
discussion
of
this
topic
can
be
found
in
Eric
Schmidt

and
Jared
Cohen’s
The
New
Digital
Age:
Reshaping
the
Future
of
People,

Nations
and
Business
(Alfred
A.
Knopf,
2013),
particularly
in
the

introduction,
pp.
4-‐8.

India’s
virtual
middle
class:
The
Virtual
Middle
Class
Rises,
by
Thomas

L.
Friedman,
published
2
February
2013,
New
York

Times,
www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/friedman-‐the-‐
virtual-‐middle-‐class-‐rises.html,
accessed
1
May
2013.

Introduction
to
Sociology:
Mitchell
Duneier,
the
professor
who
taught

this
course,
wrote:
“When
I
give
this
lecture
on
the
Princeton
campus,
I

usually
receive
a
few
penetrating
questions.
In
this
case,
however,

within
a
few
hours
of
posting
the
online
version,
the
course
forums

came
alive
with
hundreds
of
comments
and
questions.
Several
days

3

later
there
were
thousands...
Within
three
weeks
I
had
received
more

feedback
on
my
sociological
ideas
than
I
had
in
a
career
of
teaching,

which
significantly
influenced
each
of
my
subsequent
lectures
and

seminars.”
Teaching
to
the
World
From
Central
New
Jersey
by
Mitchell

Duneier,
Chronicle
of
Higher
Education,
3
September

2012chronicle.com/article/Teaching-‐to-‐the-‐World-‐From/134068/,

accessed
6
May
2013.

Zooniverse:
Http://zooniverse.org.
“Over
180
countries”
is
from
8
May

2013
correspondence
with
Arfon
Smith,
Director
of
Citizen
Science,

Adler
Planetarium

Iceland
crowdsourcing
a
new
constitution:
See
“Iceland
is

Crowdsourcing
Its
New
Constitution”,
10
June

2011,www.good.is/posts/iceland-‐is-‐
crowdsourcing-‐its-‐new-‐
constitution/?utm_content=image&utm_medium=hp_carousel&utm_sou
rce=slide_4,
accessed
6
May
2013.

The
Mona
Lisa’s
Wikipedia
page:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa,

accessed
9
May
2013.

“The
National
Gallery
of
Denmark’s
website”:
Candidates
for
Google

Gigapixel,
National
Gallery
of
Denmark
(Statens
Museum
for
Kunst),
20

November
2012,

https://plus.google.com/photos/+StatensMuseumforKunst/albums/58
12929202671334753,
accessed
7
May
2013.
Note
that
these
pages
are

are
on
the
gallery’s
Google+
site,
not
under
the
gallery’s
main
smk.dk

domain,
but
they
are
under
the
gallery’s
full
editorial
control
and
I’m

therefore
depicting
them
as
being
part
of
the
National
Gallery
of

Denmark
“website.”
Of
the
56
comments
on
this
group
of
web
pages,

three
comments
were
made
by
two
individuals
who
identified

themselves
as
living
in
Denmark;
one
of
those
is
an
employee
of
the

gallery.

4

This
essay
is
excerpted
from
the
book
Sharing
is
Caring:
Openness

and
sharing
in
the
cultural
sector,
Merete
Sanderhoff,
editor,

published
by
the
National
Gallery
of
Denmark,
2014.

Free
download
at
http://sharingiscaring.smk.dk/en

Free
download
and
more
at

http://sharingiscaring.smk.dk

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