Programs and Research

The virtual cultural heritage

Lorcan Dempsey

With contributions from Constance Malpas

LIBER Think tank on the future value of the book as artefact and the future value of digital documentary heritage, National Library of Sweden, 24-25 May 2007

Virtual?Cultural?

Heritage?

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… the function of the library must be understood as one that assists members of the community both in taking particular positions and in recognizing and assessing the positions taken by others.

Ross Atkinson

And yes, I know itis simplistic!

A unifying schematic to show‘collection attention’.

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high low

low

high

stewardship

uni

que

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ssBooksJournalsNewspapersGov. docsCD, DVDMapsScores

Special collectionsRare booksLocal/Historical newspapersLocal history materialsArchives & Manuscripts, Theses & dissertations

Research, learning and administrativematerials, •ePrints/tech reports•Learning objects•Courseware•E-portfolios•Research data

•Institutional records•Reports, newsletters, etc

Freely-accessible web resourcesOpen source softwareNewsgroup archives

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Selectively acquire andPersistently manage•Bought?

•Licensed?

Memory•Libraries, archives,musuems.

Institutional and And personal processesGenerate materials:Records, data sets,….

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Books

Rareness is commonE-volution

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Rareness is common … in the G5

G5 aggregate collection:• 10.5 million books• ~60 percent represent unique contribution by one or another of the G5 libraries

61%Held by 1

20%Held by 2

10%Held by 3

6%Held by 4

3%Held by 5

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… and beyond

System-wide print book collection (as of January 2005)• ~32 million print books

37%Held by 1

5%Held by > 100

3%Held by 51 - 100

5%Held by 26 - 50

20%Held by 6 - 25

30%Held by 2 - 5

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Cumulative age distribution of G5 holdings

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Years

Pro

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rtio

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ub

lish

ed D

uri

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or

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Yea

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> 80 percent of Google 5collection post 1923

> 80 percent of Google 5collection post 1923

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Space – opportunity costs Value in research and learning: disciplinary

differences Mass digitization Off site storage Converting ‘owned’ materials into ‘licensable’

materials

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Mining text

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Thematic research collections

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Beyond books

“It is only when we translate the old style-based thinking and language of historians into new modes of representation that we can begin to grasp the complex relationships between architectural production and the creation of … cultural identities.”

Stephen Murray, Columbia University

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Then: E. Viollet Le Duc Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (1874) (1st American Ed. 1875)

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Now: Interactive, multi-dimensional navigation of a networked resource

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Increased emphasis on collective management: preservation, storage, resource sharing, digitization

Emergence of alternative institutional models for print sales?

E-volved formats: Thematic research collections New representational modes Deeply mined digital collections alongside print

collections Special collections of the future?

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Stewarding Unique collectionsMoving into network environmentReconfigurations

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Then: Rich description with little scholarly content and few opportunities to remix or re-use; continued reliance on library mediation for scholarly access to material

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Now: Federated access to multi-institutional holdings with support for personal collection-building and sharing

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“On bokes rede I ofte, as I yow tolde.But wherefore that I speke al this? Nat yooreAgon it happede me for to beholdeUpon a bok, was write with lettres olde”

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Unbinding Chaucer’s bokes (and bookes)

41 occurrences

111 occurrences

33 occurrences

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In vanilla world, the institutionally unique becomes more important?

Boundaries between curatorial traditions less important to creative use

Digital visibility creates use The digital copy creates interest in the aura of the

original Computational potential reveals new possibilities Significant curatorial challenges for the library

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The products of research, learning,and administration

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University of Minnesotahttp://www.lib.umn.edu/about/mellon/KM%20JStor%20Presentation.pps

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Research and learning behaviors change Then: Final ‘product’: publish and archive Now: Process generates reusable outputs

E.g. data sets, learning materials, blog commentary, …

Institutional memory Reports, course catalog, …

Traces Surveillance, logs, social, …

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The open network

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The Northern Ireland Political Collection (NIPC) is a unique resource. No other institution in a localised conflict has systematically collected material from all sides. Much less has it been done in the field, and often literally across the barricades.

The web?

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Kewl!!!!

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The library takes a networked resource and adds value for the local constituency:• Faceted browse based on genre/document type• Full-text searching of achived sites• Selection of seed URLs and frequency of crawls informed by subject specialists and scholars

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The medium of identity construction The venue of dissemination of scholarly and

cultural materials Evidence What and who to collect?

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So…

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Securing the scholarly and cultural record

Community?

Institution?

The record ain’twhat it used tobe?

•Intervention required•Preserving print?

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More assumes the attributes of the ‘special’

Curatorial responsibility for

more unique materials?

Institutional Capacities?

Collaborative sourcing?

Examples•Thematic research collection•Curated databases•Institutional ‘identity’

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Managing digital?

An archival perspective?

ProvenanceEvidential integrityVersioning

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The scholarly and cultural record is “incorrigibly plural”

The library needs plural responses within singular frameworks.