4 Digital heritage

SunoikisisDC Digital Approaches to Cultural Heritage, Spring 2022

Session 4: Digital heritage collections

Thursday February 3, 2022, starting at 16:15 GMT = 17:15 CET (for 90 minutes)

Convenors: Paula Granados García (British Museum), Rhiannon Lewis (U London & Science Museums Group), Stella Wisdom (British Library)

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/v9bR2LbBqlU

Slides: Combined slides (PDF)

Outline

This session introduces the concept of digital collections and considers their important role in the present GLAM landscape. We discuss the spectrum of collections from digitised assets to born-digital formats. Three case studies further explore: the dissemination, discovery and interaction with digital images in social media and other platforms; collection and accession of emerging formats, including web-based interactive narratives and mobile apps; ethical and intellectual property issues around preserving endangered material knowledge in digital collections. All of these help us consider some of the most important concerns surrounding the emergence of digital collections, such as digital preservation, accessibility, open access, and rights ownership, which will also be explored in a proposed exercise.

Seminar readings

• Clark L., Rossi G.C., Wisdom S. 2020. “Archiving Interactive Narratives at the British Library.” In: Bosser AG., Millard D.E., Hargood C. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12497. Springer, Cham. Available: https://bl.iro.bl.uk/concern/conference_items/ede94ef4-95b4-4bc7-bce0-b36343cb3542?locale=en
• S. Münster, F. I. Apollonio et al. 2019. “Digital Cultural Heritage meets Digital Humanities.” International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 42.2. Available: https://cris.unibo.it/retrieve/handle/11585/715071/528139/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W15-813-2019.pdf

Further reading

• Arrigoni, G., Kane, N., McConnachie, S., and McKim, J. 2022. “Preserving and sharing born-digital and hybrid objects from and across the National Collection.” Project Report. Available: https://vanda-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/01/20/12/49/45/92b733d4-929e-429e-9fd1-82d134405465/VA-ResearchReport-Jan22.pdf
• Bertacchini, Enrico, and Federico Morando. 2013. "The future of museums in the digital age: New models for access to and use of digital collections." International Journal of Arts Management 15.2: 60-72. Available: https://iris.unito.it/retrieve/handle/2318/105581/58394/bertacchini_morando_ijam_paper-revised-final_reading.pdf
• Hindmarch, J., Terras, M., and Robson, S. 2019. "On Virtual Auras: The Cultural Heritage Object in the Age of 3D Digital Reproduction." In: H. Lewi; W Smith; S Cooke; D vom Lehn (eds), The Routledge international Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites. London: Routledge, pp. 243-256. Available: https://melissaterras.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/onvirtualauras_hindmarchterrasrobson.pdf
• Koščík, Michal, and Matěj Myška. 2019. "Copyright law challenges of preservation of" born-digital" digital content as cultural heritage." European Journal of Law and Technology 10.1. Available: https://ejlt.org/index.php/ejlt/article/view/664
• Mudge, Mark, Michael Ashley, and Carla Schroer. 2007. "A digital future for cultural heritage." XXI International CIPA Symposium, Athens. DOI. Vol. 10. No. 1.222. 2007. Available: https://www.isprs.org/proceedings/xxxvi/5-C53/papers/FP104.pdf
• Sabine von Schorlemer. 2020. “UNESCO and the Challenge of Preserving the Digital Cultural Heritage.” Santander Art and Culture Law Review 2.6, 33–64. Available: https://www.ejournals.eu/pliki/art/18632/
• Chiara Zuanni. 2021. "Theorizing Born Digital Objects: Museums and Contemporary Materialities." Museum and Society 19.2, 184–198. Available: https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas/article/view/3790

Other resources

• UNESCO Digital Heritage
• Digital Preservation coalition
• Digital Collections the British Library
  • How to find and use the British Library's IIIF enabled images
• British Museum Digital repository
• Endangered Material Knowledge Programme
• Europeana and IIIF 3D: next steps and added dimensions?
• Preserving and Sharing Born Digital and Hybrid Objects Towards a National Collection project

Exercise

1. Find an object/image or two from a digital collection that is IIIF enabled (see examples in session and in links above) and think about how you would present this in an online exhibit of your own. (See exercise from session 2 for more examples.)
2. Use the Exhibit.so platform to create a public-facing story or narrative about your object, including the image/3D model, and paying attention to labels, audience·s, metadata, original catalogue record, etc.
3. Share a link to your exhibit in the issues for this session, or share with your tutor and colleagues for discussion.