OpenCulture

I was asked recently to summarise the current UK situation for museums and the digital agenda for some overseas visitors. Here’s what I said: (more…)

I’ll nail my colours to the mast - I am an evangelist for aggregation. I believe that after a decade or more of mass-digitisation, aggregation is the next step in bringing rich, entertaining experiences based on museum, library and archive content to the majority of ordinary punters.

Lots of things work at an aggregated scale that don’t work on the level of an individual institution. It is cheaper and more robust to develop strategies for digital preservation, monetisation and application development at an aggregated scale than it is at a local one. (more…)

“Culture and the arts serve the very important role of comforting people and providing spiritual power, strengthening regional bonds, and offering people hope for tomorrow.”

These are the words of Seiichi Kondo, Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan, in his email to cultural institutions the length and breadth of the country. Comforting people and providing spiritual power. Strengthening regional bonds. Offering people hope for tomorrow. (more…)

Why do museums have the things they do? Sometimes the answer is obvious - because they help tell the story of key moments in human history and achievement. Sometimes less so. Collecting is not a single, consistent process. It is tumbling, organic, opportunistic. It happens in waves, in fits and starts according to the availability of material, money and enthusiasm. (more…)

By: Mar Dixon (@mardixon)

On January 16th, after reading the newspapers on line, a particular statement from one article kept repeating in my head.  The article was on the many library cuts hitting the UK and the writer said something along the lines of ‘Libraries are vital because’ and then went on with what were very relevant reasons, but they weren’t reasons with which I personally could identify. (more…)

As the cuts to Arts funding chunter ever onward, some new motifs are emerging. ‘Where is the leadership?’ people cry. ‘When will the Minister intervene?’. But even as we enter the darkest hour for museums, some new aspects of this landscape are becoming clear. (more…)

It’s a simple question. How much would it cost to Digitise everything in Europe’s museums, archives and libraries? Answering it turned out to be one of the biggest challenges the Collections Trust has ever faced. (more…)

I was fortunate to be invited by the Natural History Museum’s Collections Committee to join them for their awayday last week. Part of the Museum’s larger strategic development, the aim of the session was to devise a new Collections Strategy and to connect it to the broader Science Strategy. (more…)

And so it was that I found myself in the warm fug of the day before Christmas Eve visiting some friends of friends. There, in a group of 15 or so professional, intelligent, educated and culturally-engaged people, the topic turned to my profession and the current economic climate. (more…)

Attending today the Europeana Scotland event co-organised by the Collections Trust and Museums Galleries Scotland. The event is an opportunity for Scottish museums and other cultural institutions to find out what Europeana is, how it works and what it can do to help them get their Collections to a wider audience. (more…)