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

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A unifying schematic to show ‘collection attention’.

And yes, I know it is simplistic!

Books Journals

Newspapers Gov. docs CD, DVD Maps Scores

Special collections

Rare books Local/Historical newspapers Local history materials Archives & Manuscripts, Theses & dissertations high stewardship low 6

Freely-accessible web resources

Open source software Newsgroup archives

Research, learning and administrative materials

, •ePrints/tech reports •Learning objects •Courseware •E-portfolios •Research data •Institutional records •Reports, newsletters, etc

•Bought?

•Licensed?

Selectively acquire and Persistently manage Memory •Libraries, archives, musuems.

7 Institutional and And personal processes Generate materials: Records, data sets, ….

Books

Rareness is common E-volution

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Rareness is common … in the G5

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G5 aggregate collection: 10.5 million books ~60 percent represent unique contribution by one or another of the G5 libraries 10% Held by 3 6% Held by 4 3% Held by 5 20% Held by 2

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61% Held by 1

… and beyond 3% Held by 51 - 100 5% Held by 26 - 50 System-wide print book collection

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(as of January 2005) ~32 million print books 5% Held by > 100 37% Held by 1 20% Held by 6 - 25 30% Held by 2 - 5

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Cumulative age distribution of G5 holdings 1 0.9

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0 < 1 80 1810 18201830 18401850 186018701880 18901900 19101920 19301940 19501960 197019801990 2000 1 Years > 80 percent of Google 5 collection 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 13

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 16

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

American Ed. 1875) ( 1 st

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Now: Interactive, multi-dimensional navigation of a networked resource 18

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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 collections

Moving into network environment Reconfigurations

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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 23

Now:

Federated access to multi-institutional holdings with support for personal collection-building and sharing 24

“On

bokes

rede I ofte, as I yow tolde.

But wherefore that I speke al this? Nat yoore Agon it happede me for to beholde Upon a

bok

, was write with lettres olde” 25

Unbinding Chaucer’s bokes (and bookes)

41 occurrences 111 occurrences 33 occurrences 26

      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 27

The products of research, learning, and administration

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University of Minnesota http://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, … 34

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.

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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 The record ain’t what it used to be?

Community?

Institution?

•Intervention required •Preserving print? 43

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’ 44

Managing digital?

An archival perspective

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Provenance Evidential integrity Versioning

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  The scholarly and cultural record is “incorrigibly plural” The library needs plural responses within singular frameworks.

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