Publishing Cultural Heritage
Alastair Dunning
Digitisation Programme Manager
JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee)
a.dunning@jisc.ac.uk, 0203 006 6065
UCL Presentation, 19th June
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 1
JISC Digitisation Programme
 Manager for 8 projects, part of 16 project programme to
digitise UK cultural heritage. For example
– British Newspapers 1620-1900
– Pre-Raphaelite Art
– Images from Scott Polar Research Institute
– Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets
– 20th-century Government Cabinet Papers
– http://www.jisc.ac.uk/digitisation
 Started April 2007, finishing March 2009
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 2
Digitisation is easy
http://homepage.mac.com/xcia0069/lizzie-innes/index.htm
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 3
Growth of Digitisation
 Possibilities of Internet inspired rapid data capture of
precious objects all over the world
 But maybe this started out as a reactive cottage industry?
– Museums, Libraries and Archives rushing to digitise material and
dump it on the web
 How long does this material last on the Internet? Is it good
quality? Can people locate it? Can they use it?
 Quantity of material and issue of long-term digitisation
effects published material. Added pressure supplied by
Google digitisation programme
 …. Digitisation is difficult
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 4
Need for an infrastructure
 To address the issues raised in previous slide
– How long does this material last on the Internet? Is it good quality?
Can users locate it? Can they use it?
 Illustrations from the British model; other country’s models
may be different
 Demonstration that mass digitisation is complex, involving
multiple players and technologies
 Good infrastructure allows publication of cultural heritage to
happen quickly; to show value for money; to be usable; to be
easily accessible by educational communities and general
public
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 5
Data capture
 To convert the physical to digital
– Flat scanners, robotic scanners, 3D scanners, direct capture via
digital camera, remote controlled camera, conversion via medium
(e.g. microfilm), reel-to-digital, millions of typists
 To cope with all kinds of material (newspapers, stained
glass, banners, posters, maps, census, reports, grey
literature, artefacts, film, audio … )
 Need to have keen idea of priorities for digitisation
 Ensure competition but not redundancy (Keep machines
working; keep staff in place)
 Requires research on success of methodologies, dialogue
with other subject areas (i.e. sciences)
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 6
University of Southampton
Robotic Scanner – Details
at
http://www.soton.ac.uk/medi
acentre/news/2004/nov/04_
181.shtml
If you don’t have a range of options for
data capture – cultural heritage won’t get
digitised
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 7
Standards and Formats
 What file formats to ensure high-quality, long-term use
– Images - TIFF, but also JPEG2000, PNG
– Text – XML (and flavours thereof), but also RTF, Word
– Sound – WAV, AIFF, MP3, Ogg (formats and wrappers)
– Film – MJPEG, MPEG4, AVI, Quicktime, Flash (ditto)
 Normally developed internationally, but local variations occur
 Co-ordination, certification, co-operation, involvement and
decisiveness at national and international levels
 As with all parts of infrastructure, research and innovation
 If you don’t have this – see current mess over video!
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 8
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 9
Metadata
 Requires sophisticated of experts who know the digital
objects (e.g. newspapers, sound recordings, census reports)
 As with before, international co-ordination, certification, cooperation to develop international schema and vocabularies
 These are required at subject level, format level, technical
levels, preservation levels. For example
– Dublin Core, MODS – generic resource description
– VRA4 – digital image description, including technical details
– METS – wraps together different information on a digital object
– PREMIS – preservation metadata over long term
 If you don’t have this – trust and authenticity, interoperability, resource
discovery are severely hindered
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 10
Data Delivery
 I.e. the people that build websites
 Complex engagement between commercial (Google,
ProQuest, Thomson Gale, JSTOR) and non-commercial
suppliers (universities, museums etc.)
 Huge range of potential business models
– Institutional subscription, Personal subscription
– Pay-per-view, Google Ads
– Open Access
– Mixed model
 But no definitive answers about the more successful
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 11
Data Delivery – What is required
 Ability to regularly serve up websites and data
 Systems to deliver a range of digital content (e.g.
newspapers, audio, posters, artifacts)
 Low overheads and year on year costs
 Good understanding of end-users
 Working in partnership with other content providers
 Commitment to innovation and good practice
 If you don’t have this – wheel will be constantly reinvented,
users will be driven away, material will be siloed
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 12
Preservation Facilities
 Digital objects become obsolete with time. Experts are
required to ensure this does not happen
– Expertise in handling digital assets (content and all
metadata) in long term, and preferably also the hardware
and media that hold such content
– Must be trusted and reliable
– Good relationship with data delivery providers
– Continual research – why, what and how to preserve?
 Without this, digital data will be lost, endangering the entire
investment made in digitisation
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 13
Preservation Facilities – Case Study
 A good example from the late 1990s
 Orphaned archaeological data rescued from obsolescence
 CDs, floppy discs, PCs, databases, word files, CAD files all
left
 But lack of metadata meant not all data could be retrieved
 http://ahds.ac.uk/creating/case-studies/newham/
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 14
Digitisation Infrastructure
 Network capabilities
 Data capture
 Authentication
 Standards, Formats
 Tools Development
 Metadata
 Usability testing
 Data Delivery
 Copyright clearing
houses
 Preservation
 Consultants
 Trained expert staff
 And of course Money
 Skill is in making sure
these pieces fit together
 Suitable courses
Joint Information Systems Committee
31 May 2016 | Programme Meeting | Slide 15