Summary of presentation for “Mapping the Future”, 28 January 2003 in Luxembourg
CROSSING BORDERS.
Museums exist because human beings are profoundly interested in keeping an
on-going record of their heritage. Other institutions such as archives and
libraries bear witness to the same phenomenon, with each bringing some
specific aspect of a vast area into clearer focus. The roles traditionally
assigned to museums are to maintain collections of natural and manufactured
objects, and to place them at the disposal of the public in a manner that
increases our understanding and enjoyment of the history our planet and the
life that it has sustained.
With the advent of digital communications networks, people can benefit from
certain activities of a museum without actually going there. Although
widespread access to printed and other media has long had the same effect,
the possibilities provided most particularly through the Internet, are
utterly unprecedented in their scope and potential.
The notion of intelligence can now be juxtaposed with that of heritage not
only in the human sense but also in terms of machine intelligence. This has
given rise to a new academic discipline - Human Computer Interaction (HCI).
It should be no surprise that HCI specialists have already begun to study
the ways in which our access to, and perception of, material and
intellectual aspects of our heritage is being affected by computers.
Using the Internet has become a significant human activity, in its own
right. This is seen both at the workplace and in leisure time.
It has had the perhaps somewhat unexpected consequence of bringing physical
museums to the attention of a segment of the public that had previously not
had any particular interest in them. It has also at least raised the
specter of museums being in competition with the Internet for the attention
of the devotees of leisure time spent on-line.
However much real justification there might be for this concern, it is
absolutely clear that the way the residents of the Information Society
spend their leisure time can fundamentally effect the future economic wellbeing of museums.
Mobility
Major developments are:
+ A growing mobility of the public, physically (cars, airplanes), but also
socially.
+ Expansion of the leisure industry internationally
+ Increased competition for the attention of the consumers
+ A tendency in which consumers will take more initiative to plan their
visits according to their own preferences, made to measure, therewith
influencing the programming of museums greatly.
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People are crossing borders of countries. They cross borders of their
social status more easily.
They cross the borders of their passive role into a more active one.
And…they travel from the real world into the virtual one and back.
A big leisure industry is trying to help and exploit the opportunities.
This crossing of borders brings the people of Europe closer together. It
fosters understanding for each other and promotes cooperation: a preeminent goal of the European Union. It is not so long ago that both cheap
flights and the Internet were non-existing in Europe.
Museums
Museums are aware that they have an important role to fulfil, being above
all communicators of culture.
Museums have various ways to react. There is more and more international
cooperation between them. Of course, also thanks to many initiatives of the
European Union.
But there is more.
We see a growing detachment between the traditional institutions and their
cultural supply. Exhibitions are organised with objects from museums, but
in places outside the museum, museum staff participates in outreach
programmes and more virtual presentations on the Internet are produced.
Moreover, museums realise that they are not the only institutions dealing
with heritage. Libraries and archives keep collections and organise
exhibitions. At the same time museums keep archives and libraries. Many
museums are established in historic monuments.
And nowadays many exhibitions are organised in historic buildings like
churches.
Museums are thus crossing borders, too. They are leaving their traditional
role behind and venture on to new and promising paths.
The challenge for museums is to redefine their place in society,
developing a strategy based on the strength of their institutions and the
public they will be able to reach.
Museums however should never compromise on the quality of the knowledge and
information that they make available. The people consider museums as being
institutions that can be trusted.
Knowledge and information are key issues.
And with that we come to the use of the Internet. Museums produce beautiful
websites, they make collections available on line and provide e-mail
facilities.
The .museum top level domain
They even have established their own top-level-domain, called .museum. With
the creation of this tld museums have certainly crossed borders.
. museum creates various opportunities for them:
1. Providing the possibility of servicing potential visitors/tourists with
a wealth of information to prepare their visit well ahead
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2. Opening up a potential of making their collections available online at a
structured and standardised way
3. Establishing trust by creating a well structured domain in which only
“real” museums up to the standards of the international definition of
museums will be allowed to register.
4. Establishing a shared cultural community in which every museum, big or
small, rich or poor will have equal opportunities to present itself and
provide information
5. Paving the way for a greater cultural presence on the Internet by
gaining much needed experience of managing a top level domain and making
this available for other sectors of the cultural heritage field.
Ordering and arranging is museum’s every day life. It may therefore be no
surprise that the .museum tld is very well ordered.
First of all it is a controlled namespace in which there is no place for
any other than trusted and verifiable museums. The whole network of the
International Council Of Museums (ICOM) and various other museum
organisations worldwide assist in the verification procedures.
Secondly there is no “first come first get” as with .com or .org. Not one
national museum for instance will have the only right to be registered as
national.museum. The naming principle upholds the principle of equal rights
for every museum. This has also a very practical meaning, because
Thirdly the naming principles make searching easy. The second level domain
provides either a generic or a geografic name, for example:
neuesmuseum.design.museum or nationalgallery.london.museum
In practice this will mean that potential visitors are served in a variety
of ways. An American or Japanese wishing to visit Europe can search the
Internet going to the .museum domain. Anyname.museum will give him access
to the whole structured list of museums all over the world. By the nature
of the naming principle, used by .museum he will be able to identify
immediately the nature of a museum (art; natural history; design; science
etc.) or the location.
There are many, and well organised sites in which museums are presented,
but they are either fully focused on one country only (sites of national
tourist boards for instance) or do not guarantee that registered
organisations are in fact real museums. Often these sites are commercial,
meaning that only museums willing to pay for this publicity are registered.
Inclusive approach
The European Union has provided funding for an awareness campaign in Europe
to inform museums of the benefits of registering under .museum. Many
activities are planned just to do that, but not only restricted to museums.
At meetings with “Resource”, the British Governmental organisation for
museums, libraries and archives in London and Pulman, the Public Libraries
Mobilising Advance Networks in Lisbon cooperation between museums and
libraries will for instance be addressed.
The EU funding will not only result in the registering of many European
museums, but with that start a process of servicing its citizens by
providing them with the opportunity to cross borders more easily. They will
not only visit Prague, but also Brno, once they know of the wealth of
museums in the latter town.
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But museums, as stated earlier, are just part of a much broader cultural
supply. There is the cultural heritage in general including libraries,
monuments, historic houses, archives, archaeological sites, but there is
also the broader scale of theater, concert halls, festivals and much more.
It is to be foreseen that in the future more topleveldomains will be made
available, among which many controlled ones. .libraries or .monuments or
.festivals just to mention a few.
.museum is therefore of a much wider importance than its actual
constituency. If it succeeds, the chances of opening up the Internet for
more (cultural related) top level domains grows, but if .museum fails it
will equally diminish the opportunities for others.
.museum is thankful for the European Union and its far sightedness to
stimulate the development of this domain by supporting the awareness
raising campaign “MUSENIC”, especially because it opens up so many
opportunities to cross borders. .museum is willing to share as much
experience as possible with its colleagues in the cultural heritage and
even the more broader cultural fields.
The MUSENIC Project includes calling archive and library sector attention
to the museum experience with .museum. The explicit purpose of this is to
encourage the establishment of new TLDs equivalent to .museum, for the
archive and library communities.
Although each of the three domains would serve its nominal target
community, the adjacent namespaces can also developed jointly, providing
citizens with unique means for locating information about heritage on the
Internet, without concern for the primary sectoral identity of the
institution providing that information. An example of this would be the
domain-based labeling of object descriptions, where information sanctioned
by the holding institutions could be provided for, say,
monalisa.collection.louvre.museum and
magnacarta.collection.british.library.
Although not directly considered in the MUSENIC Project, this cluster of
adjacent domains could also include fixed property with, for example,
.monuments and .sites (recognizing the need for clearer differentiation
between the latter label when used for designating physical as opposed to
digital constructs).
Europe provides an ideal arena for the initiation and development of this
action. Precisely as the role of the museum-sector NGO, ICOM, proved
pivotal in the establishment of .museum, the library and archive-sector
NGOs, IFLA and ICA, are expected to be crucial actors in any attempt to
establish the new domains. All three NGOs have their headquarters in Europe
and their Secretaries General meet frequently. (The same applies to the
Monuments and Sites NGO, ICOMOS.)
.museum will therewith not only contribute to more public access, but also
stimulate a coherent principle for scientific data management. And it will
also have the potential to create a framework for issues as authentication
and authorization, important for the challenges of Digital Rights
Management.
20 January 2003
Manus Brinkman
Secretary General
International Council Of Museums.
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