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Sharing Collections Online
This document discusses various options for sharing museum collections online and how to determine which options provide the best return on investment. It outlines different levels of open access from sharing content and metadata to full aggregation and outlines platforms like Google Cultural Institute, Wikimedia Commons, commercial picture libraries, and Europeana. For each option, it discusses the effort required and potential upsides like increased exposure and audience as well as downsides like losing control over content or data. Key recommendations include defining your approach based on your audience and values, using high quality images and metadata to unlock multiple options, and using commercial activity to generate income to reinvest in further opening collections.
Sharing Collections Online
- 1. Share and Sharealike– The How and Why of Sharing Collections Online Nick Poole, CEO, Collections Trust (@NickPoole1)
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- 3. That became aresearch project…
- 4. That became abook…
- 5. Initial question: “There aremany different ways of opening up collections online for access and engagement. Each one costs my museum something. How do I decide which ones to go with?”
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- 7. Open access ≠fewer sales
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- 10. ‘Digital’ ≠ anaudience
- 11. Let’s start with: -Audience - Culture - Mission
- 12. So what arethe options?
- 13. The continuum ofuse… CONTENT FUN LEARNING OUTREACH A BIT A LOT AGGREGATION RESEARCH COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT DATA MINING METADATA
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- 20. Return on Investment • Achieving your cultural mission and/or objectives • Delivering on your public task • Enhancing the status of your museum or gallery • Raising the public profile of the organisation • Establishing new revenue streams • Increased revenue from existing image licensing/commercial activity • Improved balance of commercial revenue against grant-in-aid or other support • Access to new funding streams (such as European funding programmes) • Advocating the importance of collections as a key part of service delivery • Improved case for collections management and/or documentation • Opening up tasks for collaboration and crowdsourcing • Improving the quality and consistency of your collections information
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- 22. Google Cultural Institute Effort: 4 Upside: Exposure through Google User-focussed tools for digital curation Promotes re-use of your existing images Downsides: Not focused on sending people/value back to you Google is a business Only takes content around selected themes Return on Investment: Reputational Levels of usage not known http://g-cultural-institute.appspot.com/signup
- 23. Google Art Project Effort: 6 Upside: Exposure through Google Gorgeous gigapixel images Downsides: Very selective focus Google is a business It’s a ‘walled garden’ Gigapixel images Return on Investment: Reputational 20m visitors in first 12 months 200k user-created ‘collections’
- 24. Wikimedia Commons Effort: 5 Upside: Huge potential audience Fits with the cultural mission Promoting open re-use Downsides: Huge potential audience Requires CC0 Irrevocable Return on Investment: Cultural Audience
- 25. Commercial Picture Libraries Effort: 4 Upside: Money Exposure Enhanced metadata Downsides: Very selective Out of your hands Retain 25-50% of the licensing fees Return on Investment: Financial Depends on the collection 500 high-profile works – c. £5k - £12k per annum 2000 mid-range works – c. £5k - £30k per annum
- 26. Your Own PictureLibrary Effort: 10 Upside: Money Politics Access to images Downsides: High upfront costs High staff/running costs Return on Investment: Organisational Picture library revenue supports further digitisation Picture library activities support other functions V&A Images revenue for 2008-9 was projected at £350,000 (20k images), of which 62% was estimated to come from commercial image licensing….
- 27. Europeana Effort: 7 Upside: Exposure - huge demand for UK content Political/reputational value Access to future European funding Access to apps, labs, network, expertise Downsides: Won’t take data directly from your museum Your data is presented alongside everyone else’s Your metadata in their data model Return on Investment: Audience 6m searches on Europeana this year (23m records) Potential access to future EU digitisation funding
- 28. Culture Grid Effort: 4 Upside: Share it once, deliver it to multiple channels Simplified process for participating in Europeana Easily create collaborative, cross-search projects Apps & widgets Downsides: Limited direct audience Mapping your data Return on Investment: Political 312,149 searches in 2012 Not a public-facing service – primary audiences are museums and academics
- 29. BSI PAS 197 BSI PAS 198 ACCREDITATION BENCHMARKS PDF/XML/PRINT GUIDANCE + SCHEMA COMPLIANCE NEW IDEAS (23,000) WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY (7,600)
- 30. Key messages: How youshare your collections online is defined by your audience, your culture, your values and your mission. High-quality images of high-value items, decent SEO and an API will unlock pretty much all of these options Commercial activity rarely generates profit, but it can deliver income that can be re- invested in opening up the collection. A very small proportion of your collection is likely to be commercially valuable – be harsh with yourself (or get someone else to be) Sharing high-quality images for open non-commercial use drives value and new business to commercial image sales. With an open, standards-compliant, well-documented API (& a SPECTRUM-compliant system), you can make use of metadata-based promotional tools without having to do additional work.
- 31. Please help mebuild on this research: http://tiny.cc/sharingcollections
- 32. Nick Poole Chief Executive,Collections Trust nick@collectionstrust.org.uk http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole twitter @NickPoole1